


Sympathy For The Vessel

by KismetJeska



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Godstiel: Cas as God, Hell, Torture, Vessel Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-21
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-19 22:41:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 37,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/578403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KismetJeska/pseuds/KismetJeska
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the end, the vessels of Heaven and Hell suffer just the same. In Hell, Nick and Jimmy's memories of the families they lost are all they can hang onto- but can they hang on long enough to be saved? The job is one for Castiel, but these days nobody's quite who they used to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time publishing on AO3, so I'm kind of scared! I've been writing fanfiction for ages, though, and this is being cross-posted from fanfiction.net. It will update every Sunday on both sites. 
> 
> The fic is set around the end of series six. It skips around between flashbacks and 'now', but hopefully that should be relatively easy to follow.
> 
> I hope it's okay!

When James Novak is five years old, his teacher asks him what he wants to be.

"So the whole class can hear, Jimmy," she says. He looks out at the others, all waiting as patiently as five year olds can, and turns and hides.

"Sweetie, it's okay," she soothes, laughing slightly. "Everybody else has already said theirs. Scott wants to be a train driver, don't you, Scott? Would you like to drive trains like Scott?"

Jimmy shakes his head against the material of her skirt. Trains are loud, and scary, and he doesn't like them at all.

"Do you want to be a builder like Andrew? Or maybe a doctor like Melissa?"

He shakes his head again. After a moment's pause he says something, but it's too muffled for anyone to hear.

"Go on, Jimmy," she encourages. She takes his small, clammy hand in hers and he shyly turns out to face the others, nibbling anxiously on his free thumb. "Tell us what you want to be when you grow up."

And taking some strength in the reassuring squeeze of her hand, he swallows hard and does exactly that.

"I want to be an angel."

* * *

There is a ringing in his ears that will not go away, and that's the one thing that's never changed.

He thinks they've changed everything else they can in every way they can, and in some he was sure they couldn't. He recalls a time when everything was so hot, so blisteringly hot, that he watched his skin blacken and fall from the bone, fat dripping like candle wax. And he remembers a time- afterwards, he thinks, though it's difficult to know- when they cut his skin open and the blood froze before a single drop could fall from the wound. He thinks the cold was worse in some ways, a kind of slow burn.

But the ringing, the incessant, dizzying ringing, hasn't dipped or wavered once. There's never been another sound. Demons speak but he doesn't hear what they say; he feels bones crack and sees ice shatter, but no noise reaches his ears. All there is is the ringing, the white noise blocking out the rest. After a while, it starts to get him. Sometimes it gets to him so much that begins screaming to try and hear anything else, anything at all, but it never works. He screams until he spits blood but it still doesn't work.

And so when the ringing finally stops, Jimmy knows something big is coming.

"Got you a friend," the demon declares. His demons work shifts; both their true faces and the people they wear switch every time a new torture starts. So far there have been hundreds, possibly thousands of different demons. This one is in the body of a teenage girl. Her hair is tied up in bunches and her belly is jutting out over denim shorts, the only thing she's wearing.

At first, Jimmy had sympathy for the vessels. Once or twice, he even tried to speak to them (not that he could have heard them if they replied; he couldn't even hear his own words). With time, that sympathy rotted into pity which decayed into shame which mutated into anger and now he loathes the vessels as he loathes the demons. Maybe there's something about them that hits too close to home.

When he dealt in air and life rather than blood and brimstone, Jimmy didn't think he had the capacity to hate.

 _Got you a friend._ Jimmy's mind has been preserved much as his body has, and whilst the words sound strange after so long with nothing, he can recognise them- though he doesn't understand the demon's meaning. The entire time he has been in Hell, he hasn't seen another soul. Why change that now?

 _Because this place_ is _change,_ he answers himself. _They couldn't choose which flavour of chaos they wanted, so they ordered the sharing platter._

Two demons approach, dragging a slumped body between them. Their arms curl around the figure's hips, leaving its toes and fingers scraping against the floor as they haul it forwards.

Suddenly, a third demon is behind him. In one swift motion, it yanks the bolt clean out of Jimmy's wrist. He screams but stops the instant he hears the noise. It's alien, too loud. He's not used to hearing himself scream. The demon removes the other bolt and Jimmy falls to the ground, landing in a heap on the floor. The wounds at Jimmy's wrists pump angry red blood, speedily forming pools on the stone, but he has known worse pain and it won't kill him; it can't.

"C'mon, boys!" one demon enthuses. "Say hello, make friends."

Jimmy shakily pushes himself up onto his hands and knees, trying to ignore the crimson steadily coating everything. He places a foot on the ground and, after a few attempts, manages to rise and stand.

"You got all these," a demon pipes up gleefully, gesturing at a table that stretches back further than Jimmy can see. It's piled with glistening silver and black, a tangle of knives and swords and guns and hammers and stakes and chains and things that Jimmy doesn't have words for.

"You can always use your hands, but sometimes they get too slow," the one wearing the teenage girl says. She giggles and flashes her lurid pink nails at Jimmy. He thinks he sees a small fragment of bone lodged under one.

Jimmy doesn't understand what they want from him until he glimpses who the other person is. He scrambles backwards, desperate to find somewhere to hide, but there's nowhere. They're in a vast cavern with dark rock walls and a dark rock floor and not that much else. The demons are sniggering.

"Something wrong?" one asks innocently.

"Please," Jimmy whimpers. "Please, leave me alone." It's been a long time since he begged, and the demons boo in disappointment. He forces himself to look at the other figure and finds them stood frozen in place. He doesn't know why, but he knows it can't be good.

They stay like that for a while, in a scared and silent stand-off, until the demons grow tired of waiting.

" _Talk_ , preacher boy," one hisses behind Jimmy, stubby fingers gripping tight on his shoulders. Do they want him to beg? Would it work?

The silence is broken, but not by him.

"I don't understand," Jimmy's opponent says. They sound different; their voice tremors. "How- how are they holding you here?"

Jimmy doesn't understand. "What?"

"How are they keeping you here?" they say again. "You, you're an angel. You could rip this place apart."

Jimmy debates lying. He thinks about claiming that he's still got the power of grace coiled inside of him, but they'd know it wasn't true, know it the instant the words left his lips. How could he lie to the Prince of Lies?

"Castiel isn't here," he says.

"What?"

"He's gone, I swear! Check if you don't believe me."

"How would I be able to tell?" Lucifer is looking at him in confusion, and Jimmy responds in the same manner.

"You're- I thought you'd-" Jimmy tries. Lucifer's eyes widen in sudden understanding.

"What? No, I'm not- no, not anymore."

"I don't believe you," Jimmy says bluntly.

"I'm telling the truth!" he insists. "He's gone, he's out. Lucifer has left the building."

Memories are leaking through, drop by drop. Jimmy _did_ see Lucifer in Sam's body, didn't he? But that was only for an instant, in the half-second before Lucifer took out his pesky younger brother and Castiel dragged Jimmy down him. Being a vessel is like catching every fourth episode of a TV show, except the show is your life and you come to with blood on your hands and dirt in your teeth and you don't know how any of it got there.

"Lucifer killed me," Jimmy says without really knowing why.

"Congrats. Welcome to the club."

"He killed you?" That unnerves Jimmy. Castiel had always promised that when- _if-_ he ever let Jimmy go, he'd be fine.

"I was barely even alive," the man says. Maybe Castiel knew the vessel's name, but Jimmy doesn't. "He kept me hanging on and when he left I just… got let go, I guess."

"That doesn't sound quite right, does it?" the demon behind Jimmy says, breaking their silent watch. "Are you sure he's telling the truth?"

"I am!" the man shouts. His voice echoes off the cavern walls, a hundred different voices claiming a hundred different things

"Getting angry?" another demon asks innocently. "You'd better be careful, Jimmy. Don't you remember last time?"

"He killed you," the demon behind Jimmy croons. "He snapped his fingers and he _undid_ you."

"I didn't!" the man says desperately. "I wasn't there! I wasn't even fucking _alive_!"

"You really want to trust him on that, Jimmy?" comes the voice from behind again.

"That's Lucifer," the demon in the teenage girl says confidently. "I would recognise him anywhere." She licks her lips and smiles at him. " _Daddy."_

"Please," the man begs, backing away. "Please, I'm not him, I'm not Lucifer-"

Jimmy doesn't know what to think. The man cowering opposite him hardly matches his memories of Lucifer, but…

"I was hoping they'd do it on their own," one of the demons sighs heavily. The others murmur in assent. The demon who spoke raises its hands and utters a handful of words and then suddenly, everything falls into place.

Lucifer straightens up. He _is_ Lucifer, Jimmy sees this now. Wrath takes Jimmy over, utterly takes him over, wrapping around his veins and knocking on the walls until it breaks through and pulses through him, the blood pouring from his wrists to make room for liquid rage. He will destroy, he will cleanse, he will purge and he will make it right.

Lucifer springs forward, snarling, and snatches up a weapon. The action disgusts Jimmy. As if Lucifer has the right to harm Jimmy, as if he hasn't already done enough, as if Jimmy hasn't given enough-

The blade ghosts Jimmy's neck but he swerves out the way. Lucifer sneers and darts forwards, trying to plunge the knife into Jimmy's stomach. Jimmy dodges it and grabs at the table, taking up the first thing he can. A mace. He tests the weight of it in his hands and when Lucifer runs at him again, he swings.

* * *

When Sarah first met Nick, she thought he was an arse. As far as 'so how did you two meet?' stories go, theirs usually gets the best reception at parties.

"An ' _arse'_ ," Nick always specifies. He doesn't know why he likes the way she says the word so much. He guesses it's the same reason he likes that she can't do her mascara without opening her mouth and that she cuts her apples into slices to eat them and that she hums along to the theme songs of TV shows without realising.

"Why?" someone tends to ask.

"Isn't it obvious?" another guest usually jokes.

"I _still_ think Nick's an arse," someone will invariably finish off, and then everybody laughs and laughs.

"What made you change your mind?" Sarah gets asked once, by the kind of woman who spends ten minutes a week staring down the 'find your perfect match!' ads at the side of her screen and persuading herself that she's not that desperate yet.

"I changed," Nick answers for her. "And thank fuck I did."

"You weren't _that_ bad," Sarah objects.

"Bad enough," Nick says.

"Well…" she says, and they both giggle like schoolchildren caught talking in class.

"Sarah made me a better person," Nick tells the captivated woman.

"And that's absolutely mutual," Sarah says, though that's stupid because you don't _get_ better than Sarah. He tells her as much and she mock-argues, rapping him on the head when he keeps on insisting. He kisses her in retaliation and she smiles against his lips, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him in close.

The woman sighs dreamily, but after a few seconds grows uncomfortable or depressed or just plain bored and wanders away.

"Hey, your friend's gone," Nick says, pulling away slightly.

"I'll find her later," Sarah murmurs. Nick grins again and rests his forehead against hers.

"I love you so much," he tells her, in the kind of way he never imagined he'd be able to.

"I love you more," she answers simply.

* * *

Nick feels the blade slice through Castiel's flesh and it makes him want to laugh. It feels good to get at the angel, to the one who ruined everything.

Lucifer had a plan, and it had been going to _work._ He used to whisper as much to Nick, late at night when the town was quiet and still. He would tell Nick that he would clean the world and make right wrong, take this concept of a great and glorious God and make it burn.

"Don't you want to see God burn?" Lucifer had whispered with Nick's lips, lying on a worn-down bed and staring at the ceiling. And from his trapped half-existence, Nick had answered 'yes'.

It was only ever supposed to be short term. Lucifer spoke with others and Nick learned of the angel and the two more-than-humans he fought alongside: the Michael Sword and Lucifer's True Vessel.

"Don't go getting jealous," Lucifer would tease sometimes. "You're a favourite, Nick, but Sam is my destiny. You understand."

At first, Nick cared about whether he'd made the right choice, whether they'd win- whether he _wanted_ them to. Lucifer found his conflict adorable. When Nick finally realised that he'd made a mistake, Lucifer took delight in showing him just how right he was. Nick stopped caring soon after that.

Now, he cares. No, it's more than care- it's passion, it's fire, it's life and light and it's all so clear to him. Before, Nick had denounced Lucifer, but he sees now that he's been blaming the wrong angel. The pain, the suffering, even Sarah- it was all down Castiel, all his doing. Nick knows this now, and as he darts forwards with the blade, he feels good. He feels alive.

* * *

When Jimmy is six, he goes through a phase of proudly telling everybody that he has two fathers. The teacher overhears this one day and discreetly pulls him aside after the lesson finishes.

"Jimmy, why did you tell Maria you had two daddies?" she asks him. "I've met your mummy, and she's lovely."

"I have a mummy _and_ two daddies," he answers her, not really sure why having a mummy would affect things.

"But your mummy and daddy are still married, sweetheart," she says, trying to understand.

"I know," he says impatiently, eager to go and rejoin his friends.

"So you only have one daddy," she concludes. He shakes his head stubbornly.

"I have two fathers and they both love me lots, and I love both of them _lots_ and lots. I only ever met one but that's okay, 'cause I know the other one's there, and even if I can't see him or hear him, he can still see and hear me," he tells her.

"Oh," she breathes. "Jimmy, are you talking about God?"

He screws his face up. "Thought that was _obvious,_ " he says.

* * *

They decimate each other.

They've both learned from the angels who walked in their skin, and they put their knowledge to good use. Jimmy pins Nick in place and hits him over and over again like Castiel hit Dean, never giving him a second to recuperate. Nick grabs at Jimmy's arm and twists, and Jimmy's bones break more readily for Nick than the Pagan God's did for Lucifer. They throw each other at the rock wall, at the ground, at the massive table itself. The demons clap in delight when Nick holds Jimmy to the bench and brings a hammer down onto his face.

If they were on Earth, they would both have been dead long before the time the demons call an end to it. As it is, one mutters a few words and suddenly the absolute conviction, the _need_ to hurt disappears. It doesn't ebb or fade- one instant it's there, and the next it's gone.

They've both been aware of the pain, but with all desire to express it as anger gone it's too much to handle. Jimmy collapses to the ground, a bleeding, shredded wreck. He is missing most of his fingers and he'd hazard a guess that at least ten bones are broken. A short distance away, Nick is in a similar condition.

"We'll be back," one of the demons says smoothly, and they dissolve back into darkness.

Jimmy lies and stares at the wall and feels his wounds begin to heal. It's every snap of bone and every slice of blade reversed in slow motion, and it hurts a thousand times more than the original fight ever could have. He and Nick howl their agony as their bodies slowly knit back together.

Some time later, a new demon enters. This one's wearing an old man, beard long and knotted with lumps of what Jimmy identifies as lung. Most of their injuries are gone, but one of Nick's ribs is still fractured and the vision out of Jimmy's left eye isn't good, and they both ache with pain permeating so deeply that they never want to get up again.

"Begin," the demon says. He raises his hands and the anger pours in and the tiredness pours out and they begin, and they do not stop.

* * *

"What about your father?" Sarah asks gently. Nick's hand stills; he sets the pen down.

"What about him?" he asks, aiming for blasé but missing the mark.

"Do you want to invite him?"

"Might as well invite the mailman," he grunts.

"He's your family, Nick," Sarah says. "Shouldn't you at least let him know?"

"I don't want him there, Sarah," he says. He's still not looking at her. He sits staring at the desk, eyes aimed a short distance above the guest list itself. She lays a caring hand on his shoulder.

"He loves you," she says.

"He had an interesting way of showing it."

"I didn't say he was a good man, or that how he treated you and Sandra can be forgiven," she says. "I'm not saying you _should_ forgive him. But are you okay with your family not being there for something this big?"

"I am," he breathes. "Don't you see, Sarah? I really, really am. I want to get a _new_ family, not drag back my old one. Your dad's been more of a father to me than mine ever was, and you know how much I love your mom. I want to leave all this crap behind- you know, start afresh. Please, try and understand."

"I will," she says, and it sounds like a promise. "I _do_. Nick, look at me."

He does, forcing his lips into a smile to try and hide the wateriness in his eyes. Sarah notices but she doesn't say a thing, just looks at him with so much compassion and so much love.

"We won't invite your parents," she says. "But your sister's still coming?"

"Sandra would make us get divorced and remarried if she missed it," he points out. Sarah snorts.

"True. Remind me to introduce her to Dave, they'd get on."

"Stop trying to hook up my sister and your brother."

"Why?" she teases. "We could double-date."

"Oh my God, no."

"We could go on cruises together."

"You're hurting me, Sarah."

She giggles and he chuckles too, sombre mood scattered. "Okay, so tell me how much money you want to waste on flowers," he says, picking the pen up again.

"You old romantic, you."

"Tell you what, I'll go out and pick daisies from the garden beforehand. Fair?"

"Only if you pick enough to decorate the entire church," she warns. "Actually, I'd pay good money to see you outside picking flowers."

"I don't think I'd ever recover my street cred."

"I don't think that would take very long."

"That was just _mean_."

* * *

Jimmy watches the flames pull at Lucifer's head, a flaming halo apt for a fallen angel. Lucifer screams in agony, but Jimmy doesn't care. He doesn't care about the pain pulsing through the stump of his right arm, or the blood pouring from his left ear where Lucifer burst the eardrum, or the demon cackling in the corner with the body and voice of a nine year old girl.

Lucifer grabs Jimmy's coat and pulls him close, and before Jimmy can get away the flames catch. He tries to beat them out with his left hand but it only makes them worse, and so he screams alongside Lucifer, their voices carrying on until their larynxes burn out.

The fights are anything but short. Sometimes they start to tire- often to the point where it takes a full minute for them to get up from where they've been thrown- but they don't let it stop them. The periods of recovery vary in length depending on the injuries sustained. Lucifer manages to hack his way through Jimmy's neck muscles once, freeing his head completely, and mending _that_ takes a very long time. The healing is the worst pain Jimmy's felt yet.

The pattern continues. The desire to kill flares in their bodies and they wage war on each other until a demon says 'enough', and they are patched up enough to hold a sword again.

It takes Jimmy longer than it should to join the dots and fully comprehend that no, this isn't Lucifer. Jimmy remembers enough aboutLucifer to know that that neat finger-click disintegration is definitely something he would have pulled by now. He guesses the man trapped with him really is just another empty vessel. Still, he tends to forget that when they're fighting, and even when he does finally get the knowledge to stick it doesn't make any difference.

In one recovery period, over fifty fights later, there is a break in their screaming. The final shards of Jimmy's femur are slotting back into place, and whilst it's awful, at least it's localised.

"You know, I never-" Jimmy winces at a particularly intense burst of pain- "got your name."

It's the first time they've spoken since they were first dragged together. It takes the other man several minutes to reply. Whether that's due to pain or distrust or confusion, Jimmy has no way of knowing.

"Nick," he eventually says. "You?"

"Jimmy."

"So, Jimmy," Nick says. He arches his back and hisses as the deep gash down his spine begins to sew itself shut. "You come here often?"

Jimmy finds himself laughing. It's a low, slow and thudding sound, and it's so _strange_ after so long without it that he's almost grateful when it stops. They're judged well enough to fight soon after that, and the conversation drops from Jimmy's mind as the demon raises its hands.


	2. Chapter 2

Jimmy first notices Amelia in English class. She's the one always raising her hand to answer something or other, and ninety-nine times out of one hundred she's right. At first he tries to keep up with her, but as she's ridiculously gifted and he still has to concentrate to spell 'definitely' right, he learns to content himself with watching her go.

The teacher tells them one day that they'll be doing their next presentation in pairs, and gives them the rare luxury of choosing who they work with. Jimmy immediately turns to his best friend, but Carl's already making apologetic faces as he crosses the room to stand with Graham, because Carl is a filthy traitor. Jimmy scowls and begins the desperate game of trying to grab somebody before it's too late and he has to be the kid standing alone at the front, smiling awkwardly as the teacher asks 'does anyone else not have a partner?'.

He's nearly given up hope when a beautiful blonde girl taps his arm lightly.

"Hey, do you want to work together?" Amelia says like it's nothing. Maybe it _is_ nothing for her, but talking to Amelia tends to make Jimmy forget every vaguely intelligent thought he's ever had- and indeed, at times, the entire English language.

"Yep," he says. "Yep, sure, that sounds good. Yep." _Stop talking, Jimmy,_ he thinks desperately.

"Okay," she giggles. Everybody settles down in their groups and Jimmy alternates between trying not to look at Amelia and trying to look at her casually, like he's a normal human being who can function in society _._ So far, it's not going too well. He's lusted after girls before, sure, but at fifteen years old he thinks this is the first time he's really, properly _liked_ one.

"So, Macbeth," she says.

"Eugh, yes. It's rubbish, isn't it?" he says enthusiastically. "Really boring."

"It's my favourite Shakespeare play," she says apologetically, because she is absolutely the kind of person to have favourite Shakespeare plays. She's probably got well-thumbed poetry anthologies by her bed and plays Scrabble to relax. She's so far out of his league that he's surprised she even knows his name.

"Right, sure. Um, me too."

She smiles at that. "It's okay if you don't like it. It's not everybody's thing."

But he _wants_ to like Shakespeare. He wants to have something in common with her, wants to have something more to say than 'man, your hair is pretty'.

"Tell me why you like it," he says. And she does, and while he tries to listen, he finds himself struggling to focus on her actual words and not just the musical lilt of her voice. Her hands fly and her eyes are wide and excited as she talks, and he starts to wish he had that kind of passion for the play. Or for anything, really.

"You make it sound so cool," he says when she runs out of steam, blushing and muttering apologies about 'getting carried away'. "I should give it another try. I wish I didn't... I just find it kind of hard to understand," he admits.

Amelia smiles shyly. "I could help. I mean, if you wanted."

And that's how he ends up getting English tutoring every Tuesday afternoon from Amelia Reynolds, and when he finally kisses her two months later he still hasn't learned a damn word of Shakespeare.

* * *

"That one _hurt,_ " Nick complains, a fair amount of time after the most recent healing began.

"What, it took you that long to figure it out?" Jimmy grunts. The skin on his hands is beginning the laborious process of turning from black to scarlet to pink to… skin-coloured. It's going to take a while.

"I could hardly mention it earlier, could I?"

"Why not?"

"I didn't have a _tongue._ "

"I still think you could have tried," Jimmy says mildly. His eyes roll back in his head as a blister collapses back into his skin. Healing burns is never fun. Jimmy hears Nick muffle a shout and knows he's going through the same thing.

"Sorry about the, you know," Jimmy says once the pain has receded enough to let him talk, "burning."

"Right back atcha," Nick says, sounding a little surprised. They've never said anything like that before, because what's the point? It's not this is their fault, not like the fighting is really _them_. For some reason, though, Jimmy feels the urge to keep on going.

"And the stabbing."

"And the shooting," Nick adds on.

"And the, uh, goring."

"And the biting."

"You bit me?"

"You didn't notice?"

"I was distracted."

"What, so distracted you- ow, fuck!" Nick shouts, rolling onto his side and pulling his knees up to his chest. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

"You okay?" Jimmy calls out when there's a break in the swearing. Another blister collapses on his own body and he bites his lip to try and avoid adding to the noise.

"Stomach," Nick groans, cautiously unfurling. "Better now."

"I'm sorry," Jimmy says again.

"Don't be," Nick says, brushing it aside. "You can't help it, man."

"Guess not," Jimmy says. Deep inside him, something uncomfortable begins to stir.

* * *

Nick tries his hardest not to drum his fingers against his leg, because he's standing at the _altar_ and that's simply not appropriate. Where's he supposed to put his hands? He doesn't know how to wait patiently. The eyes of everybody he cares about and everybody Sarah cares about are on him, and he feels too big and too clumsy and seriously, _where_ does he put his hands? He can't exactly put them in his pockets. He wishes he was in jeans.

But then Sarah comes out, and he forgets everything else. The dress that sucked the life out of his paycheck for nearly a year clings to her chest and flows freely down her legs, floating as she moves. A collective 'ahh' rises from the audience as she walks forward, her father by her side. He winks at Nick, who grins back before letting his eyes slide over to his fiancée's face. Her makeup is flawless, her dark hair glossy with not a strand out of place.

He never forgets how beautiful she is, but sometimes it still takes him by surprise.

She stands in front of him and he wants to ask if they can skip the rest of the ceremony so he can just kiss her right here, right now. Pretty much the only thing stopping him is how happy she looks, like this is everything she's ever wanted. Neither of them can stop looking at the other, to the point where the vicar has to call "Nick?" twice before either of them notice.

The vows are standard. They debated personalising them, but he wasn't comfortable with the idea of talking like that in front of an audience. She understood.

He repeats the words mechanically, feeling vague guilt for not paying more attention to such important promises. He knows that he means every word he's repeating- he's already worked his way through his mandatory pre-wedding crisis- and so he lets his mouth handle the mechanics of the thing while his mind fills itself with _Sarah, Sarah, Sarah._

"You may now kiss the bride," the vicar says. The audience bursts into thunderous applause, and Nick looks from the faces of his sister to his friends to Sarah's family to Sarah's friends and then finally to Sarah, beaming at him with glistening eyes and looking utterly radiant.

He cups her chin in one of his hands, still seeming so large against her small frame, and yet somehow fitting perfectly. He pulls her close and kisses her and she tastes like mint and rain and new beginnings.

* * *

Nick is plunging a knife into Jimmy's stomach, over and over again, when the thought comes unbidden.

_"So what did you do for a living before you took your gold badge in Angel Handling?"_

It's not a thought so much as a memory. It's a fragment from a conversation with Jimmy, though he can't say exactly when it occurred. The knife stills, confusion over the recollection temporarily overpowering his rage.

_"Uh, mostly drinking," Nick replied. Jimmy snorted before crying out in pain._

_"Alright?"_

_"Elbow," Jimmy got out. Nick sucked in a sympathetic breath._

_"They're the worst."_

_"No, knees are."_

_"You kidding? Give me knees over elbows any time."_

_"I'll keep that in mind."_

The lucidity is unfamiliar, ice water in his face. Jimmy's takes advantage of Nick's moment of weakness to tug the knife from his own wet guts, flipping them so that his legs are locked around Nick's middle and the blade they're wrestling over pushing towards his jugular. The fury takes over again and Nick fights to regain power, snarling and digging his nails into Jimmy's flesh until blood starts to trickle down the backs of his hands.

_"How about you? Exciting career?"_

_"I sold ad time for AM radio."_

_"Enchanting."_

_"Tell me about it."_

_"Still, it's gotta be better than being some angel's pullover."_

_"Yeah, mine wasn't much fun."_

_Nick snorted at that. "What?" Jimmy asked._

_"'Mine' was Lucifer_. _Hear that name anywhere?"_

_"Obviously."_

_"Tell me, was it linked with anything good?"_

Nick freezes in place again and Jimmy doesn't waste any more time. He cuts at Nick's throat, again and again and again until he's carved his way inside, and then the blade is scraping against Nick's trachea and then, suddenly, air isn't making it to his lungs and he's choking and Jimmy's still cutting and-

"Time out!" the demon shouts. The aggression evaporates from them both and they drop to the ground, Jimmy dragging in painful breaths and Nick trying against reason to do the same. "This round to the Bible-fucker, I think," the demon hums, and it leaves them to heal.

Nick rolls onto his back and waits to start mending, trying to control his panicky, aborted gulps for air. Mingling in with the pain are the memories, dragging him down like rocks being sewn into his stomach.

_"You know, this is actually the second time I've died."_

_"For real?"_

_"Uh-huh. Castiel's real good at making enemies."_

_"I had the fucking_ devil _riding around in me, Jim. Don't talk to me about making enemies."_

* * *

They don't go to the same college, mostly because Jimmy doesn't go to one. Amelia gets accepted to study Literature and he's never been more proud of his girlfriend when he waves her off on the train. He works with his father in the family shop and she phones as often as she can. Once a month or so, she catches the train down and they spend the weekend forgetting they were ever apart.

Working in the shop isn't exactly interesting, but there are things in life that matter more. Family, for one, and between working with his parents and the regular visits from Amelia, he's got that quota beautifully filled. Now that he's not as busy, he can help out in his local church more often, and it makes him happy to feel so close to God.

One late Sunday morning, he and Amelia are lying side by side in bed with only breath between them. She trails a hand down his chest.

"I miss you," she says quietly.

"I'm here," he points out, and she giggles in that way he loves.

"You know what I mean. When I'm at college. I miss you."

His heart flips over, because a huge part of him wants to beg her to just come back and stay with him forever. It's too selfish and too tempting to think about for too long.

"You love college," he reminds her.

"I do," she says. "But I love you too."

That's the first time either of them have said that. They've been dating for about five years on and off (there was some stupid thing with some stupid boy she met at orchestra which caused the most painful and lonely and generally very stupid six months of Jimmy's life), yet neither of them had actually said _those words_ yet.

The suddenness of the revelation should probably cause them to freeze up, to edge away from each other. It should make things awkward or at least make them more serious. It does the opposite. It fills Jimmy with a bubbling kind of happiness that escapes from his mouth as soft peals of laughter.

"I love you too," he tells her, and he means it.

* * *

"One thing I don't get," Nick says. He's got his arm thrown out to the side as the bones slowly reset and is very determinedly ignoring it. He's staring up at the ceiling, which is where they usually direct their attention because there's no blood there yet.

"What, only one?" Jimmy says.

"Okay, one of the many things I don't get," Nick specifies. "Castiel was one of the good guys, right?"

"In the general sense of the word," Jimmy says.

"Huh?"

"It depends on who you ask. But yeah, I'm pretty sure he'd count as on the side of light. Why?"

"How come you ended up down here?" Nick says. "No offence, but I'm guessing you were hardly America's Most Wanted before you drunk a steaming cup of angel."

Jimmy is temporarily distracted by the blood dripping from his hair into his eyes, and has to pause to scrub it out.

"I stole a chocolate bar when I was seven, if that counts," he says, blinking his stinging eyes.

"Really?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"Was it the start of a long career as a petty thief?"

"Not so much. I cried, told my parents and spent a month praying for forgiveness."

Their conversation is less rusty now. Each time they speak they can remember what the other said for longer, hold more words in their head at once, create more complex sentences and remember the start by the time they reach the end. Jimmy wonders if that means things are getting better.

"So go on," Nick urges him. "You. Hellfire. Something's not adding up."

"I think they call it 'aiding and abetting'," Jimmy says. "Castiel wasn't exactly popular upstairs."

"And they're punishing you because it was your middle finger he held up?"

"I'm afraid so," Jimmy says.

"That's not fair," Nick objects.

"Life isn't," Jimmy says. "Neither's death." It's easy to be bitter when a new thumbnail is worming its way out of his nail bed.

"Besides, the same thing happened to you," Jimmy says an unmeasurable length of time later. "I mean, you're not Lucifer."

"Glad you finally worked that out," Nick says dryly. Jimmy elects to ignore this.

"Point is, you were just a vessel. You shouldn't be here."

No reply comes.

"Nick?" Jimmy asks, twisting his head to look. "You okay?"

"Growing back a finger," he says. "Gonna need to be quiet for a while."

Jimmy says that he understands and drops the issue- though, when thinks about it later on, he'd have sworn on his life that all ten of Nick's fingers were intact.

* * *

The puppy is looking very pointedly at Nick.

"I don't need a dog," he tells it. It yaps happily and springs from side to side, like hearing his voice is the most exciting thing that's ever happened to it.

"I really don't," he tells it again. "I've never even had a dog." He watches it tumble over itself in a valiant attempt to destroy its own tail. "Always wanted one, though," he comments. He looks at the pet shop door longingly before shaking his head.

"No, no, no. I'd probably end up… sitting on you or something. I'd forget to feed you. I don't even know _what_ to feed you. Some kind of meat. It is meat, right? Because I'm not having a vegan dog."

The puppy stops fighting with itself and looks at Nick, as if to assure him that it would never do such a thing to him.

"I'm not having _any_ dog," he quickly adds before he can get carried away. "Stop wagging your tail, it won't work. No- stop it- don't _look_ at me like that. I am not getting a dog!"

Nick realises with a burst of disgrace that he is talking to himself, out loud, in a relatively busy street. The puppy presses its nose up against the glass and he thinks it actually _sighs_. There is a definite air of 'is it really taking you this long?' present.

Something cold touches Nick's face, and he frowns. Looking up to the sky, he sees that snow is starting to drift down. A nearby shop is blasting out Christmas carols and as people scuttle by wrapped in scarves and clutching hot drinks, Nick pulls his phone out and dials.

"Sarah?" he says when she picks up. "How do you feel about dogs?"

* * *

Nick hurls Jimmy against one of the cavern's huge walls, and Jimmy grunts as his head slams into the rock. Nick springs for him with what looks like a saw but has far too many spikes to be one, and Jimmy raises the club in his hand like a baseball bat.

_"- Detroit Tigers."_

_"Seriously? The Cubs are a_ much _stronger team."_

_"Did I give you brain damage or something? Rooting for the Cubs is probably used as a torture method somewhere in here."_

_"Maybe they're not the obvious choice, but-"_

_"They're not any choice!"_

Jimmy blinks in confusion. He remembers the conversation- remembers having it with Nick- and whilst they were fighting, it was only joking, they didn't mean it. So why is he trying to-?

Nick cleaves a large section from his side, and the confusion clears.

It puts a question into Jimmy's head that he's afraid to hear the answer to. He decides to ask it all the same.

"Nick?" he says later, once the fight has ended.

"Hmm?"

"Listen, before this- I mean, when we're not- I mean, when we're, you know-"

"Trying to slaughter each other?" Nick says. He likes to try and be direct, which is something Jimmy can appreciate. Trying to understand a single thing from Castiel's mind was like tuning into a choir of singers, their voices louder than anything on Earth and at just the right pitch to shudder into his cells, to shake him out and stop him trying to listen in.

"Yep, that. How much do you remember?"

"What do you mean?" Nick says after a beat.

"I mean, how much do you remember about who you are? And I am? And why you're trying to…"

"- slaughter you." There is, Jimmy thinks, such a thing as being _too_ direct. The phrasing makes his skin itch.

"I wish you'd quit saying it like that."

"Why? It's the truth, Jim. Gotta be able to handle the truth." Nick falls quiet for a few moments. "Some," he says eventually. "I remember some."

"I get flashbacks," Jimmy says.

"Yeah," Nick agrees. "Lines from conversations."

"Tell me, for you- does it make any difference?" Jimmy asks. Nick breathes out.

"That, my friend, is the million dollar question," he says.

"Mostly I get confused," Jimmy says, "freeze up. It feels like wanting a hot water bottle when you're burning to death, you know?"

"Too damn well."

"You think we could- you know, if we tried to fight it- if we could stop…"

"Slau-"

"Yes, the slaughtering, that. You think we could stop if we tried hard enough? I don't know about you, but I'm starting to feel kinda bad over it all."

"Don't get carried away there," Nick murmurs.

"You know what I mean. So, what do you think?" Jimmy says when Nick doesn't continue.

"No idea. Worth a try, I guess." The notion should probably ease the anxiety starting to bubble away in Jimmy's chest, but for some reason, it doesn't.


	3. Chapter 3

How do you propose and not look like an idiot?

Jimmy's still trying to figure it out. He feels like the 'down on one knee' thing is cheesy, the 'ring in the glass of champagne' trick is potentially dangerous, the casual 'wanna get married?' isn't significant enough and anything involving a baseball stadium or movie theatre is just asking to get embarrassed.

Time keeps moving on, and Amelia's been working as an English lecturer for nearly a year now. Jimmy's… still with his dad's company, but that's okay. He can handle that. It's a normal, everyman kind of job, and he's a normal, everyman kind of man. Sure, he'd like something a little more impressive, but it doesn't matter. Not really.

He doesn't like to think of himself as old-fashioned, but there's still something shaming about having a girlfriend earn that much more than you. Jimmy's currently pouring all of his money into a savings account for a ring. He's found a slim silver one that he can imagine on Amelia perfectly, the neat white gemstone glistening in the morning light when she heads off to work. It's going to take him several months to get there, but that's okay, because there's a good chance it's going to take that long for him to figure out how to ask the damn question.

"Just _ask_ her," his best friend urges one day as they sit in a bar. "Say 'Amelia, will you marry me?"

"How do I lead up to it?" Jimmy asks. "I can't spring that on her without a warning."

"Amelia, what's for dinner? Also, marry me."

"That's hilarious, Mack."

"I try my best." He swigs from his beer. "Why don't you ask God? I'm sure he'd be able to help out."

Jimmy shoots him a quick glare. "Gee, I'm not sure that's an appropriate use of prayer."

All the same, that night, he does. After his usual prayers saying thank you for Amelia and his family and his life, and asking the Lord to protect Amelia and his family and his life, he pauses.

"Lord, I… I don't know how to ask her. I want her to say 'yes' so badly, and I'm afraid that if I do it wrong she'll… please, show me the way." He laughs quietly to himself. "I promise, I'll invite you to the wedding."

He finishes off and mutters his usual 'amen'. When he stands and turns, Amelia is waiting in the doorway.

"Praying without me?" she says, and he knows he's slipped up. They usually pray together, but they both tend to speak their words aloud and today he really did need the privacy.

"I was …" he says, and grins hopelessly. "Uh, impatient?"

"Impatient?" she laughs, delighted at his daring. "Are you saying I take a long time?"

"Too long," he agrees. "Come here."

He pulls her close and breathes her in. Her arms slide around his neck and she hums happily against his neck.

"Yes," she says softly. He freezes.

"What?"

"I wasn't trying to eavesdrop, honestly, but I overheard. Sorry." He stands speechless, thoughts tripping over each other as they race through his head. "So if you still want to ask, then my answer is yes."

"Are you sure?" he says stupidly. To his surprise, she starts to laugh.

"Really?"

"What?"

"Come on, Jimmy. With the amount I've been hinting-"

"Hinting?"

"The wedding magazines?" she says fondly, lacing her fingers with his. "The staring at rings?"

"Um." She just laughs harder. After a while, he starts to chuckle too.

"So it's a yes?"

"Definitely a yes," she says.

"Sure?"

"No doubt."

He grabs her in his arms, lifts her up and twirls her round and round, whooping in delight. She's beaming when he sets her down, and he knows he's grinning like an idiot but he couldn't actually care less. He wants to dance around the room, wants to knock on every door in the street and tell them the news. Jimmy tilts his head up to the sky. "Thank you!" he calls. Amelia giggles, but then tilts her head back too.

"Thank you," she agrees, leaning into Jimmy. He tucks his arms around her waist and they fold against each other, smiling up at the ceiling and feeling content and lucky and so, so grateful.

"I guess you'll wanna phone your mom, huh?" Jimmy says, to Amelia now.

"Later," Amelia says, turning to face him and very deliberately pushing one strap of her nightdress off her shoulder.

"Later," Jimmy agrees, nodding vigorously. "Later is good too."

* * *

The thought snaps into his head as he's about to bring the red-hot iron down to Nick's skin, the same kind of time it always seems to occur.

_That's Nick. You know Nick, he's not your enemy. What are you doing?_

Every single cell in Jimmy's body wants to keep on going, to keep on hurting, to make everything better- all except for a cluster somewhere deep in his brain, their whispers growing louder.

_Don't do it. This is wrong. Don't do it!_

Jimmy holds out for roughly half a second before panic overwhelms him and all logical thought is pushed aside. He brings the poker down.

"How's the skull?" Nick asks later on.

"Mostly healed now, thanks. Got a bitch of a headache, though."

"Mmm."

"How's your arm?"

"I'll live." On impulse, Jimmy forces himself to look at it. Nick's right arm is an utterly disgusting mass of muscle and flesh and bone, charred and destroyed beyond belief. _I did that,_ he thinks, and guilt punches him somewhere deep in his gut.

"I tried," he says quietly. "I tried to fight it."

"And how'd that go?" Nick grunts.

"About as well as you'd expect."

Nick snorts; this is in no way news to him. "Fucking demons," he says.

"It's not all their fault though, is it?" Jimmy says, guilt surging up to pour from his mouth. "I'm still the one that hit you and I burned you- I mean, I actually _branded_ you, for God's sake- and-"

"Don't," Nick says.

"But I-"

"I mean it, Jimmy. What's the point? You feel even worse? Fuck that."

"I can't…" Jimmy lets his voice trail off, frustrated. How is he supposed to just let it go? He's been justifying it with ' _I can't help it',_ and ' _it's out of our control'_ , and ' _this is Hell, the normal rules don't apply_ '. But if he can look at Nick and see a good man, he doesn't think he can look at himself and the things he's doing and see the same thing.

"Look, try and fight it if that's what you want," Nick sighs. "But don't go feeling bad about not holding out, 'cause you won't be able to."

"What do you mean, I won't be able to? You said it was worth a try," Jimmy accuses.

"I say a lot of things," Nick says wearily. "Demons are too strong, and this is their domain. If they don't want to lose, they won't."

"Wow, you always been this cynical?" Jimmy says touchily. He feels like a child, being rebuked for still believing in fairies and angels and happy endings.

"For a while now, yeah." Nick flexes his healing arm and sucks in a painful breath. He lets it out again and it's heavy, like just being in his body has dragged the life from it.

"I don't know about you, man, but I'm getting tired," Nick says. That's strange to hear, because Jimmy's the opposite of tired. He's anxious, filled with a fluttering energy that won't let him forget for a single second that what he's doing is wrong.

"What do you mean?"

"It's never-ending. Always the same. I keep on hoping they'll give up and let me die for real, but unfortunately that doesn't seem to be on the cards."

Jimmy doesn't know how to reply to that. Tell Nick to keep hoping? What's the point? There's nothing to hope _for_. People don't get out of Hell.

"Hey, that's a point," he says instead, pretending that the rest of the sentence has just passed him by. "Like you said, it's the same thing every time. I don't know what they did to you before they brought you to demon Fight Club, but did it change much?"

"About as far from consistent as you can get," Nick says.

"Exactly," Jimmy says. "So why the change to- y'know, no more change?"

"You said you started feeling guilty?"

"Yeah, but-"

"I'd count that as 'change'."

"Oh," Jimmy says limply, all the air leaving him in one.

"And I'd hazard a guess it's going to get worse."

"Oh," Jimmy says. "That sounds… awful."

"Welcome to Hell," Nick says dryly. Jimmy can't really fault that.

"I'm gonna try and get some sleep," Nick says.

"You know you can't," Jimmy objects.

If either of them could sleep, healing would be much more pleasant. As things stand, Jimmy hasn't slept since the lead-up to the final battle, when Castiel's batteries started to run low. Granted, he spent a lot of those lost years lurking somewhere deep down inside himself- but he was always loosely conscious, could see the colours of what was going on if not the shapes that held them. It wasn't, he thinks, the same thing as sleep: at best, it was the liminal crush of sensation between dream and reality.

"All the same, I'd like to try." Nick closes his eyes. "So fuckin' tired," he mumbles.

"One thing," Jimmy says before Nick can slip out of reach. "How about you? Why aren't you being thrown on the guilt train?"

"Never really got off it," Nick murmurs. He doesn't manage to fall asleep, but he keeps on trying until the demons reappear.

* * *

"Nick Cohen, you love that dog more than you love me," Sarah accuses.

"Don't," he says immediately. "Don't even like the dog. He doesn't even like me _._ "

"Nick, he's currently sat onyou."

This may be true.

"He's a very small dog," Nick tries.

"He's a German Shepherd."

"Well, yeah, but he's a _small_ one."

Sarah smirks and sits down next to him. "I'm not complaining," she says, tucking her feet up on the sofa and easing the front half of Banjo onto her lap. The dog looks up at her through heavy-lidded eyes, gives a contended grumble and then returns to sleep, tail thumping lazily on the other side of Nick.

"He's a fierce creature," Nick says seriously.

"Oh, I can tell," Sarah hums, scratching Banjo's head.

"Brutal, absolutely brutal."

"Mmm."

"I seriously think you should have let me name him Ripper."

"I told you, I'm not shouting 'Ripper' in a crowded park."

"Cujo, then."

"Nick-"

"Lucifer?"

"Banjo is fine," she laughs, smacking his leg lightly. "You _picked '_ Banjo'."

" _We_ picked 'Banjo'," he corrects. She considers this and inclines her head in a gesture of 'eh, fair enough'.

It's been nearly a year since Nick came home with the puppy, and between the two of them they've probably spent half of their wages on the dog. Banjo's the most spoiled Alsatian in existence, and he returns this favour by being the best behaved. Secretly, Nick was half-hoping he'd have the kind of wayward dog who destroys furniture and shits on the lawns of people you dislike, but mild-mannered, utterly adoring (if slightly dimmer than most) Banjo is a very fair trade.

Nick's left hand is still trapped by an admittedly not-really-that-small dog, but he throws his right around Sarah's shoulders to pull her in close. She lays her head on his chest. The TV is quietly burbling with some game show he's not paying much attention to and outside, snowflakes are drifting down. It's nearly Christmas again.

Nick doesn't think there's a way he could be physically happier.

"Nick," Sarah says softly after a few minutes. "There's something I need to tell you."

_What is it they say about speaking too soon?_

"Go on," he says cautiously, trying to act like he doesn't really care about what she's about to say, like he's barely paying attention.

"It's, um." Sarah straightens up and he pulls his arm away. Banjo stirs and Nick soothes him. _I know how you feel, bud._

"I don't know how to say this," she says, with a nervous flutter of a laugh.

"Just phrase it straight," he says. She nods, makes eye contact, breaks it, makes it again and holds it this time.

"I'm pregnant," she says, and at first the words stubbornly refuse to be processed. They hang in his brain, a meaningless piece of information: _I'm getting my hair cut next week, the football is on tonight, I'm pregnant._ When it finally gets to him, it's not so much sinking in as it is slamming. The news breaks apart and shatters, splinters piercing a thousand parts of his brain all at once.

"How far gone are you?" he asks, voice sounding too strained.

"About nine weeks," she says quietly. "I wasn't sure at first, but I took the test today- twice- and it was definitely positive." He nods, showing he understands.

"We've talked about kids before, haven't we?" he says, trying to sound light.

"A bit," she replies cautiously. By 'a bit', she presumably means the following phrase:

' _I don't think it would be a good idea'_

\- because that's all he's ever said on the matter. Nick nods again- he's nodding too much, too desperate to seem like this isn't freaking him out.

"Okay," he says. "Okay, right. Okay."

"Nick?" she says, laying a hand on his arm. The dog stirs on his lap and he lifts Banjo up, slides out from underneath him. The dog makes vaguely discontented muttering noises, but doesn't wake up.

"I need to get out for a little while," he says. "I need to think."

"You can think _here_ ," she says. "With me. Nick, please don't run away. We can sort this out. I mean, there's always-"

"Don't say it!" he says. "I don't- it's not- look, I'll be back soon, okay? I just need to clear my head. I'm sorry," he says desperately. Sarah swallows and blinks a few times.

"Sure," she says. "I'll see you soon." She smiles, but it's brittle and he thinks it might shatter when she drops it. He leaves before he has to find out.

* * *

"Ice or fire?"

"Fire," Nick replies. "Any day, fire."

"Really?" Jimmy says. For him, it's not that easy to call. Getting hurt by ice is awful, but healing injuries from fire is worse.

"Mmm," Nick says. "Ice brings back memories."

"Bad ones?"

"'course."

"Of what? I can't really imagine the Devil being into winter wonderlands."

"See, everyone thinks that, but he was cold," Nick says.

"Like how?"

"Everywhere we went, the temperature dropped. I once watched him- felt him- fuck it, something- freeze a glass of water just by picking it up."

They don't tend to talk all that much about their time as vessels. They joke about it sometimes because it helps to treat it all as _haha, isn't it funny, we both had angels play us like marionettes_ \- but they don't talk about it properly, because there's enough awful crap happening right now without bringing awful crap that's already _happened_ into things.

That's Nick's view, at least. Jimmy kind of wants to talk, because if they don't talk about the awful crap, how are they supposed to get rid of it? He remembers what he did as Castiel, what he did as Jimmy, what he's doing down here, in Hell, and the guilt builds and builds until he _has_ to talk to somebody to try and get it out.

But lately Nick keeps refusing to accept Jimmy's apologies and he's stopped listening to any talk about resisting, and he won't stop trying to sleep and he doesn't even seem to care when Jimmy turns his body into a burned-out shell or grinds his bones to powder anymore.

Jimmy doesn't know how Hell works. He doesn't know whether it's breaking him and Nick, or whether they were already broken and Hell's just cutting away the dead petals that hid it. All he knows is that, with each fight that passes, Nick is drifting further out of reach.

Jimmy can't let that happen. Nick's the only other human in this place, and Jimmy needs him to stay grounded so that Jimmy can stay grounded, because if all he looks at is demons he doesn't know how long it'll be before he starts to treat them as a mirror. And so, this time, he pushes the past.

"Were _you_ cold?" he asks.

"Not physically," Nick says after a beat. "Wasn't _anything_ physically, though. Felt cold in my mind. Kinda like when you drink something cold way too quick, but worse. Tendrils. Didn't go away. Got worse when he was pissed off. He was pissed off a lot."

"Castiel was warm," Jimmy muses. "Like a glow. It hurt to try and share headspace with him- it… vibrated or something, I don't know. It was much easier to, you know, slip away."

"Yeah," Nick says, in the kind of voice that means he's already shut off to the conversation. He tells Jimmy sometimes that thinking about everything that happened- that's happening now- just seems like so much _effort._

"How much of it were you awake for?" Jimmy presses.

"Some."

"I think it freaked Castiel out when I woke up," Jimmy says. "He used to get really uncomfortable. Sometimes he'd pull some trick with his grace and knock me out completely."

Nick doesn't reply, and that makes panic creep in around Jimmy's edges.

"I only tried talking to him a few times," Jimmy says. "Asking about my family mostly. All he ever said was that he'd protect them." No reply. "Did Lucifer try talking to you?" No reply.

"Nick, you gotta give me something, man." Jimmy knows that he's begging but it's been so long, so many days of fighting and before that so many days of torture and before that so many days of Castiel and he can't help but feel himself slipping away. "I'm losing it here."

And then he sees movement, and when he turns his head (he's been trying to keep it mostly still; his neck was cracked earlier and he knows from experience he doesn't want it healing in the wrong position) he finds that Nick has turned to face him.

"Would you look at that?" Nick murmurs. "You are. I am too. Just in a different way."

"What do you _mean_?" Jimmy asks desperately. Nick ignores him.

"What did you ask before?" he says mildly. Irritation pulsates inside Jimmy, but it's still conversation, so he clings to it like a lifeline.

"Did Lucifer try talking to you?"

" _Lucifer_ ," Nick says slowly, "loved the sound of his own voice. He didn't let me answer much, but he made sure I heard every word. Even at the end, when I couldn't remember my own name- I couldn't remember my _son's_ name- he still wouldn't shut up."

"You should have said something," Jimmy says limply. "I wouldn't have... I didn't know…"

Nick seems to find that funny.

"You wanna talk, Jimmy? I wanna be quiet. You want to know if I feel guilty? Of course I do. But how am I supposed to fight it? What's the point? I'm too t-"

" _Don't_ say you're tired," Jimmy snaps. The words are angry and judgemental, sharp metal scratching his tongue, but they're all he's got.

"But I am," Nick says simply. "Don't you get it, Jim? You're a god-fearing man who had a god-fearing angel stapled to you, and then you ended up down here because some asshole messed up the paperwork. I'm not like that. I'm not _like_ you."

"You were just a vessel," Jimmy tries. "That's all. It wasn't you."

"You think Castiel did bad, scary things?" Nick says in disbelief. "From what I picked up from Lucifer, Castiel was a kid with crayons. You think we can trade notes on being angel-skin? You think you can sympathise with the things I did? That I watched myself do? "

"Castiel tried to kill a little boy in his own home," Jimmy says, but it's like bringing a starting pistol to a gunfight.

"Lucifer made me kill a woman and drink her blood," Nick says, the casual tone broken when his voice cracks on 'drink'. "And I mean a _woman._ Not a demon, not an angel- a 100% human, flesh-and-blood woman. Her name was Katie, and he made me slit her throat and he pushed my lips to it and he made me _drink,_ and he let me taste. He made me taste."

Nick seems to be taking some kind of broken pleasure in this, like he wants to tell someone everything and watch them run as bitter confirmation of what he already knows; of how fucked up and how far gone he really is.

"See, I had to drink demon blood," Nick says. "Maybe Castiel could keep your pieces together with good thoughts and Band-Aids or whatever, but Lucifer burned me out. I had to drink the demon blood just to stop my _skin_ from flaking off. By the end, I was drinking litres. He used to do it sat in front of a mirror so that I had to watch."

"Nick…" Jimmy begins.

"He wanted me to taste human so I could tell them apart," he says easily, the words rolling from his mouth like hot blood down his throat. "He kept going on and on about the difference, and I eventually snapped that I wouldn't fucking well know, would I, and he told me he could fix that. And you know what? He was right. Demon blood, see, it's got this kind of… _life_ to it. It twitches on your tongue. You can feel it almost fizz on the way down, like it doesn't want to be inside you- like it's _angry_ at you."

"It wasn't your fault," Jimmy says, the only words he has, and he means them. Despite how horrific it is and how disgusting it is and how _broken_ Nick sounds- not even like he's fragmented but like every fragment is gone, all lost or shattered or ground into dust and he's just the glue that once held himself together, an empty framework left standing alone- Jimmy can hang onto this. Vessels, they were just vessels, that was all. You cannot blame the gun for the finger that pulls the trigger.

"Maybe, maybe not," Nick says. "Either way, it's happening again. We're still vessels, Jimmy, only this time it's for some demon's rage. Tell me, you ever try fighting Castiel off?"

"No," he says honestly.

"I tried with Lucifer," Nick says, "and it made him laugh."

"What are you saying?" Jimmy asks. Nick's hinting at something that Jimmy doesn't like the sound of, but he can't quite grasp _what_.

"I'm telling you that you can keep freaking out and trying to fight off the nasty demons, but I fought with everything I had and it didn't work. So excuse me if I'm not jumping on the 'free will is the _bestest_ ' train that your angel and his buddies so loved to push."

"You don't think there's free will?"

"I don't know and, more importantly, I don't care. If there is, I'm not taking it. I'm done, Jimmy." He pauses to let that sink in. "They can do what they want to me. And I'm really sorry, 'cause it's you that has to bear the brunt, but the sooner you give up and and accept that we can't do a fucking thing, the better."

How could Jimmy do that?

"I can't," he says. "I can't, Nick. I need to stop it. If I try hard enough, I know I _can_ stop it-"

"Good for you," Nick says indifferently. He turns his head to stare back up the ceiling. It's still the same cavern as it was the first time. The demons seem fond of it. "It's funny, isn't it? How you got the good angel and I got the bad. I guess God likes things to match up."

"What do you mean?" Jimmy asks.

"I deserve this place," Nick says from somewhere far away. It's a statement, like nobody could possibly disagree. "This is where I belong. Even _without_ Lucifer, this is where I'd end up. S'where I deserve to be."

"That's bull," Jimmy says, and he means what he says every bit as much as Nick does. "No way, Nick. No way."

"How did Castiel persuade you to say 'yes'?" Nick asks, closing his eyes. Jimmy blinks at the sudden change of topic, but he can't risk Nick stopping talking, so he cautiously goes with it.

"He talked to me mostly. He asked me to prove my faith- putting my hand in boiling water, that sort of thing- but mostly it was talking."

Nick nods, taking it in. "Lucifer made me hallucinate the ghost of my dead son," he tells the ceiling. "And he didn't threaten, and he didn't lie. Castiel _talked_ to you? Jesus. Lucifer turned up wearing the skin of my dead wife, and that's what made me say yes. Maybe that should tell you something about me."

"Or about Lucifer," Jimmy counters. "Okay, so you couldn't fight it then, but things are different now _._ If you can do it, maybe I can do it, and if-"

"I'm gonna try and sleep again," Nick says, yawning. "I've got a good feeling about this time."

"No, don't-"

"G'night, Jim." He doesn't sleep, but he won't reply to anything else Jimmy says.

Later, when the curved blade in Nick's hand rips through the tendons in Jimmy's shoulder, he catches Nick's eyes for a second and for that one second, the cloud of savagery clears and leaves the man behind them exposed.

Jimmy thinks he sees guilt- not the frantic desperation to make things better that buzzes in his own skull, but a deep-seated self-loathing. Jimmy thinks he sees exhaustion. He thinks that, somewhere in it all, he sees an apology, and then the knife is at Jimmy's eyes and he doesn't see anything at all.


	4. Chapter 4

"I still can't believe it," Jimmy whispers. Amelia is lying in his arms, sheets curled around them to form a bubble away from the rest of the world. The bedside lamp radiates gentle orange light and it lights up Amelia's face, lets him see how utterly content she looks. The initial excitement- the phone calls, the celebrations- has eased away into a calm kind of wonder.

"Me neither," she murmurs.

"I'm going to be a father," he says, for probably the twentieth time that day. He can't imagine ever tiring of saying the words.

"We'll have to get a nursery," he breathes. "And books, I'll read all the books."

"All of them?" she says, eyes still resting closed as she raises an eyebrow.

"Every single one."

"Better get a move on, then." She shifts the position of her feet on his legs. "What are you hoping they'll be?"

"Healthy," he answers. "Happy."

"You know what I mean," she says. His hand finds the subtle swell of her stomach and gently strokes the skin there. He doesn't know how to answer. It's the forbidden question, isn't it?

"I don't mind," he begins, and she hums an agreement. "But if I'm really honest? I'd like a girl."

"A girl," Amelia repeats. "Me too." She looks at him then, her long lashes parting to reveal huge blue eyes swimming with love and adoration and care, and he can't help but think she's going to make the best mother the world has ever seen.

"Any ideas for names?" she asks him, her hand moving to her stomach to rest lightly on top of his.

"Names?" he says. "I don't know, it's kind of early…"

"Seven months early," she agrees. "Which is good, because I've got absolutely nothing. It's not a big deal, I was just wondering if there was anything you kind of liked."

He thinks. "There are a few," he says, brushing a stray lock of hair out of her eyes.

"What was your sister called?" Amelia asks, and something catches in Jimmy's throat. He always thought that the name was too beautiful to be left behind or forgotten- much like his sister, and Jimmy loves Amelia with everything he has for refusing to let a stillborn child she never met be overlooked.

"Claire," he says softly.

"Claire," Amelia echoes. It sounds beautiful coming from her- a delicate name, feminine and graceful but with strength to it. "I really like that, actually."

"Yeah?" he says eagerly.

"Yeah," she grins.

"And what do they think?" he asks, moving his hand to her stomach again. Amelia laughs and gently pulls it away.

"They don't even have _ears_ yet," she teases him.

"But you do think they'd like it?" he presses. He doesn't want to give his child a name that they'll spend their entire life repeating with the prefix 'I-know-it's-an-awful-name-but-'. He wants them to have better than that, to have the best.

"It came from you, Jimmy," Amelia tells him. "How could they not love it?"

* * *

It's funny, because they make each other worse, and it's a vicious circle in more ways than one.

Nick is tired. When Jimmy tries to talk to him, he doesn't get a reply. Jimmy gets worried, then terrified, panic building and building until he's best described as hysterical, and all it does is remind Nick that whilst Jimmy's still struggling to fight the demons off, to stop it all, Nick's not good enough to even try. And thinking about that just makes him want to lie down and give up, and so he does, and so when Jimmy tries to talk to him he doesn't get a reply, because Nick is too tired.

When they're fighting, it's the same as ever- Nick is ruthless and Jimmy is brutal- and no matter how many times Jimmy tries to break free, he can't. He's plagued by constant reminders that he's supposed to be a good man, constant worries of ' _what would Amelia and Claire think?_ , but he can't seem to channel any of that desperate energy into a useful purpose. The need to kill is too strong, and with an unkillable rival it can never be sated.

It's funny, because whilst they're both hurtling into madness at the same speed, they're going in opposite directions.

* * *

Nick doesn't want to call the number, but he thinks he'll regret not calling it even more.

The woman answers after four rings. "Hello?"

"Brittany?" he says, mouth dry.

There is a pause. "Nick Cohen, is that you?"

"Guess so," he says, with a shaky kind of laugh.

"Which bar are you in?"

"What makes you-"

"Which bar, Nick?"

He gives her the name and, at her request, some basic directions. "Do you need me to stay on the phone until I get there?" she asks.

"No, it's fine."

"I'm serious, Nick."

"Me too. No, I'm okay. In control." The 'for now' is unspoken, but they both hear it anyway.

She grunts an agreement and hangs up, promising to be there within twenty minutes. He stares down the whisky he ordered when he arrived and tries to convince himself that he doesn't need to drink it. He's not making a very convincing argument, so he resorts to old tactics. He counts to ten. Then to twenty. _At fifty, I can drink it._ At fifty, he moves the border to one hundred. At one hundred, to two hundred. He keeps on going until a shadow falls over him.

"I'll be taking that," Brittany says smoothly. She removes the whisky and sets down a small glass of Coke down instead.

"I feel like a kid," he complains.

"Thought you might say that," she says, and neatly places a blue and white striped bendy straw into the glass. Nick doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. He settles for pushing the straw to one side and gulping down the soda. Caffeine's not the best replacement for alcohol, but it will have to do.

"So," she says, settling down on the stool next to him. "It's been a very long time since I last saw you."

"Sorry," he mumbles.

"Eh. I'm pretty sure you stopped coming for the right reasons."

It's true, he guesses. Whenever people he knew stopped turning up for AA meetings, it was either because they'd started drinking again, or because they were sure that they never would. Nick himself fell into the second category: fitting in rehab sessions around work and catch-ups with his sister and evenings out with friends and dates with Sarah and _life_ was getting too awkward.

"I probably should have called," he says.

"Yep," she says, but leaves it at that.

It's been nine years since he quit AA, and it must have been nearly five since he last properly spoke with Britt. They do the mandatory Christmas card exchange, but it's always the standard fill-in-the-blanks 'to X from Y-and-Z' deal.

It's sad, because they'd been pretty close once, but he'd just wanted to leave it all behind. He wanted to condense the starting drinking and the drinking-too-much and then the stopping drinking into one neat bundle labelled 'past', which he could push to the back of the wardrobe and not be bothered by anymore. He feels crappy for doing that to Britt, who's dragged him out of more pubs than she's been dragged out of (an impressive statistic), but she's not the type to hold a grudge.

"So what's going on?" she asks.

"Sarah's pregnant," he says, staring down at the bar top.

"And?"

"And it's mine. She's pregnant. And it's mine," he says. None of it seems to be having much of an impact.

"Do you remember that list you used to have of why you wanted to get over this crap?" she asks.

"Yeah," he says cautiously.

"Remind me how it goes."

The words were his rosary for two years; they roll off his tongue with minimum effort.

"Because I want a life. Because I want a good job. Because I don't want to end up like my dad. Because I don't want to let people down anymore. Because I want a fa…" The words die in his mouth.

"Item five," she says. "'Because I want a family'. Call me stupid, but I always got the impression you were including kids in that."

"Yeah, but-" Fuck, he's still not good at this. Years of talking about your feelings and your past while people stare at you with sappy, understanding eyes might make it easier, but it never makes it easy. "I meant that I wanted to become the kind of person who _could_ have a family. I don't think I'm that guy yet."

"Sarah was that girl you kept trying to ask out, right?" Britt says. "The last time I saw you, you told me she'd agreed to go on one date with you."

"Yeah."

"And now you're…?"

"Married," he admits.

"That sounds like the kind of guy who can have a family to me," she says.

"Britt, it's not that I don't want kids. I do." He can imagine a little boy with his eyes and Sarah's hair, can picture twin girls with infectious giggles and matching wardrobes. They feel so real that it makes him ache to think he doesn't have them.

"So what's the problem?"

"I'm not an idiot," he says bitterly.

"Gonna need more info here, Nick."

"I heard somewhere that one in three people who got beat up as kids do the same thing to their own. You ever heard that?"

"Nope."

"Sounds about right, though, doesn't it? Hell, my dad got fucked over from zero to age sixteen, and pretty much ever counsellor I've talked to brings that up as a way to explain what he did to me and Sandra."

"Your father abused you and your sister because he was an evil asshole," Britt says frankly. "You, Nick, are not."

"Look at me, Britt," he says miserably. "I'm sat in a bar, because I ran out on my wife, because she told me something that would make most people fucking ecstatic. I already got the alcoholism gene. I don't see a reason why I wouldn't get the crummy father one."

"Have some goddamn faith in yourself! You're not your father. You're worried that you're gonna hit your kid? Well, if you don't want to, then you won't."

"I wish it was that simple."

"It _is_. How did your father treat your mother?"

"Awfully," he replies. "He hit us more often, but he hit her harder." _And she let him hit her, and she let him hit us, and that's why she didn't get invited to the housewarming party._

"You ever raise a hand against Sarah?"

"Of course not," he says instantly. He can't imagine ever doing that- the very idea makes his stomach turn. Britt looks at him and her point sinks in. "Ah."

"Exactly," she says.

"Shit," he says, rubbing a hand over his face. He's not convinced that she's right, but he's not convinced that she's wrong either. "I fucked this one up pretty badly, didn't I?"

"You've done worse," she shrugs. One of the reasons he and Britt get on so well is a shared philosophy that's less 'a spoonful of sugar', and more 'a spoonful of man the fuck up'.

"You didn't drink anything tonight, did you?" she asks.

"And mess up my ten year milestone next month?" he says. "No way."

"Good man," she says, clapping him on the shoulder. "If you can get your bitch ass in order and _actually phone me_ , I'll buy you another Coke to celebrate."

"My bitch ass will keep that in mind," he says. "Well, I'd better go buy the biggest bunch of flowers they make to let my wife know I know how much I suck."

"Don't bother," she says. "Just be honest with her, Nick. That's all us girls ever want."

"You're a woman?" he says in horror. She hits him, hard enough to hurt. Nick had forgotten how much he likes seeing her.

"Thanks," he says, sincerely. "You're something else, Britt."

"Is that another vagina joke?" she demands as he gets up to leave. Everybody looks; she doesn't seem to care.

"Love you!" he calls, heading out of the bar. He drives back, making one brief stop on the way. When he pulls up outside his house, the lights are still on. The part of his brain that delights in fucking him over assures him that he needs to run, to drive, to stay in the car and to get the hell out of there.

He ignores it.

When he unlocks the door and pushes it open, Sarah is leaning against the wall. She looks at him like she's waiting to find out the verdict- whether she needs to be angry, or sad, or disappointed; whether he's going to reek of alcohol and slur apologies or tell her that he's packing a suitcase. Banjo trots up and greets him warmly, and Nick absent-mindedly scratches the dog's head before moving forwards.

He holds his hand out without further comment, and she takes the object he's proffering with understandable confusion.

"I don't…"

"It's a, uh, gingerbread man," he says, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly.

"Yep, I got that. But, um- _why_?"

"You know… ginger. It's supposed to be good for morning sickness. I think."

Sarah looks from his face back down to the packet in her hands, and starts to chuckle. Some of the tension in his chest melts away. "Oh my God," she says, laughing. "Come here."

He pulls her into his arms and she lays her head against his chest. "Only you," she gets out between sniggers, "would come back from a fight with _baked goods._ "

"We didn't fight," he objects, resting his head lightly on top of hers.

"A heated discussion, then."

"Was it really that heated?" He pulls away a little, turning her so he can look into her eyes. "I'm sorry," he says.

"It's okay. Did you…?"

"No, no. I phoned my old sponsor and she came out."

"Brittany?" Sarah says in surprise. "And she didn't stab you on the spot?"

"Close thing," Nick acknowledges, and then grows serious. "Sarah… you know that's more than just a cookie, right?" he says, nodding towards the packet. "It means- I wanted you to know-" He stops and tries again. "I'm on board with this."

"If you don't want-"

"No, I do want. I really, really want." He breaks into a grin then, wide and honest. Her own smile is small, but it grows the longer she looks at him. He wraps her arms around her again, and after a while she leans up to speak into his ear.

"You gonna tell me what that was about?" she asks him quietly.

"I will," he agrees. "Just… not tonight?"

"Sure thing," she says, kissing him lightly and drawing back. "In the meantime, we've suddenly become very popular with a certain dog."

Nick looks down to where Banjo is gazing up at the packet in Sarah's hands with his much-rehearsed 'I-love-you-so-much-do-you-love-me-if-you-loved-me-you-would- _definitely_ -give-me-that' look.

"Man, Banjo, you know you're on a diet," Nick whines. "Sarah, he's giving me the eyes."

"Banjo, quit harassing your master," Sarah says. Banjo takes very little notice. Nick gives Sarah a similarly beseeching look, and she hands the cookie over with a good-natured roll of her eyes. Nobody is immune to Banjo's charms.

He snaps off a gingerbread leg and Banjo takes it from Nick's hand, so gently that he barely feels it. Nick has the sudden, strangely warming thought that Banjo would be great with kids.

"C'mon," Sarah says, taking his hand. "We've got crappy TV to finish watching, and if you think I'm letting the dog have the whole of that thing, you can think again."

Outside the window, more snow is falling, steadily covering up the tracks from where he left.

* * *

Soon, Nick stops saying anything at all.

Jimmy falls to pieces. He can't help it. He spends the healing periods, every minute of every one, begging "you're okay, aren't you? We're okay, aren't we? I'm really sorry. We're good? Nick? Nick, say something. I'm really sorry. Are you okay? You're okay, aren't you? Nick?"

Nick's stare is glassy, even when Jimmy shakes him by the shoulders. "Nick? Nick, please, this isn't funny. Nick, come on, please."

It barely even reaches Nick. He feels like he's underwater- everything seems a very long way away. He's vaguely aware that there is someone else here with him, but whenever he focuses on their voice and their words and works out who they are _,_ he realises that they're the person he tortures day in, day out, and the level of guilt that brings never fails to swallow him whole and send him back under.

Nick fights with the same vigour as ever- they both do- but he never remembers much afterwards anymore. All he knows is that he did terrible things, horrible things, because that's him and that's what he does and that's all he'll ever do. Whenever he tries to think about anything- even simple things like whether he's hot or cold or whether his arm hurts or not or who won the last fight- he's hit by an overwhelming wave of apathy and antipathy.

What does it matter? He knows what he is. He's a creature built of hate and guilt and darkness, all shadows hiding sharp edges. And as much as he misses Sarah and his son, he can't help but feel relieved that they got away before he could taint them. He can't help but feel jealous that they're gone, that they got to die.

There's a place called rock bottom, and Nick's been there more than once. Turns out that below rock bottom, though, there's Hell.

Jimmy keeps on shaking him, begging and pleading and- at more than one point- praying, but Nick's beyond reach. The parts of him he thought were dead have shown him what it really is to die, and honestly, he'd be laughing if he wasn't so very fucking tired.

* * *

"I did it," Jimmy announces as he walks through the door. She leaves the pan on the stove and meets him halfway across the floor, arms wrapping tight around his neck.

"Was he okay with it?" Amelia murmurs.

"Yeah," Jimmy replies. "He said he understood, and that he was happy for me. It was the right thing to do."

"I know it was hard, though," Amelia says. "He's your dad. You've been working with him ever since we left school."

"It was the right thing to do," Jimmy repeats. It had been tough, yeah. It hadn't been nice to hurt his father, but the facts are that this job's going to pay better, and with the baby on the way every penny helps. Jimmy doesn't think trying to persuade people to buy advertising space on early morning radio is his calling in life, but he's never really felt an overpowering desire to be a certain thing. Amelia's always wanted to teach, Mack's always wanted to write; Jimmy's only ever wanted a family.

Time passes, and he soon finds himself sat on the end of their bed, bouncing slightly with nervous energy.

"Are you nearly done?" he calls for the third time.

"Nearly," the reply comes from the bathroom.

"You know, I think you're just as beautiful without makeup," he says.

"That's sweet of you, honey."

"You're still going to wear it, aren't you?"

"Yes." He groans and slumps over on the bed. Amelia sticks her head around the door.

" _Jimmy,_ " she says sternly. "If this was fifty years ago, you'd have had to wait until the baby was born."

"But it's _not_ ," he whines. She shakes her head, smiling, and returns to finish off her mascara. He jigs his leg, and he keeps on doing it in the car, and he keeps on doing it in the waiting room until she puts a hand on his knee and holds him still.

"Sorry," he says, but he's not really. He's too excited to be sorry.

"So what are we hoping for?" the sonographer asks as she helps Amelia into the chair.

"Healthy," they chorus as one.

"Of course," she says, spreading jelly onto Amelia's stomach. "That goes without saying." She finds the heartbeat easily, and soon Jimmy's looking at what's quickly becoming his favourite sight in the world.

"Hey there," he grins at the image of the baby on the screen. Now he's seen confirmation that their child's still good and strong, he feels more able to answer her questions. After all, this next part is what's had him too excited to sleep properly all week. It's another step towards their baby becoming a person.

"So?" the sonographer asks as she checks. Jimmy watches the screen raptly, but he doesn't really know what he's looking for.

"Girl," Amelia confesses. "We'd like a girl."

"Then you're in luck," the sonographer announces. Jimmy's heart skips a beat.

"It's a girl?" he checks.

"She's a girl," the sonographer confirms.

The rest of the day passes in a dream. Every conversation Jimmy has that _isn't_ about how he's having a baby girl seems bizarre to him. Why are people bothering to talk to him about work, or politics, or the news? Jimmy already knows what the most important thing in the world is, and her name is Claire.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sequence of flashbacks changes a little here- the first section is present day, the next flashback, the next present etc. Hopefully it's still easy-ish to follow!

"Hold up, hold up. I'm tryin' to talk to you here."

"For what reason?" the man says, tilting his head. "I have no interest in conversation, and certainly not with you."

"Thought you were a better God," the man on the floor splits. "Thought you _wanted_ to listen to all your dotin' subjects."

The comment hits its target somewhere deep inside Castiel- the part of Castiel that is _still_ Castiel. He recovers quickly. "Demons have no God."

"Nah, we _did_ , but you threw him in the Hell pit," the demon complains. "Kinda rude of you, don't you think?"

"Lucifer is in the Cage, and that is where he will stay. If there was something else you wanted to tell me, speak now. I do not intend to wait much longer."

He begins to move his hand towards the demon's forehead and it scampers back in panic. "I got information," the demon pants. "Somethin' you might wanna know."

"I know all," Castiel says simply.

"You know 'bout your vessel?"

"James Novak?" Castiel frowns. "What about him?"

"He still rattlin' about in there?"

"No," Castiel says. "When Lucifer destroyed me Jimmy was killed. He now resides in Heaven."

The demon, to Castiel's surprise, starts to chuckle. He assumes that the demon is suggesting it knows something Castiel does not- which, whilst laughable, is inappropriate. He doesn't grow angry- he is God now, and anger is too human a trait to be his concern- but distaste grows within him. Something else stirs too-

_let us out_

_-_ but he ignores it. He stretches out his hand to perform the killing touch.

"He's not in Heaven!" the demon shouts. Castiel's hand pauses.

"You're lying."

"Why would I do a thing like that?"

"You're a demon. It's in your nature."

"Yeah, but what've I got to gain by lyin' _now_?" the demon says. "Is anythin' I tell you gonna make you let me go?"

"Of course not."

"Then why would I waste my energy with bullshittin'?"

To confuse, to irritate, to harm. There are thousands of reasons why demons lie, and Castiel has already let the filth before him live longer than planned. Still, he chances a few more seconds.

"Jimmy Novak was a good man," Castiel says firmly. "He was a devout believer with an untainted soul, and he belongs in Heaven."

"And _you_ belong in a hole in the ground, but seems we ain't all ending up where we should be lately," the demon says. Within Castiel, a whisper.

_let us out_

No. Not now. Not yet.

"How many Winchesters have climbed outta Hell now?" the demon continues. "S'gotta be what, three?"

"I had no part in John Winchester's transfer."

"Yeah, but it still happened _._ And it was definitely you who yanked the other two out - one straight from the goddamn _Cage_. That's before we even get to you, the famed Castiel, who died and came back twice _._ You miss something the first time 'round?"

"State your point," Castiel commands. He tires easily of demon talk.

"I'm just saying, it hardly seems fair that Jimmy gets stuck down there while you're all skippin' round up here."

An involuntary shudder passes down Castiel's spine. "Jimmy is in Hell?"

"Where did you _think_ he was, angel? Honolulu?"

Castiel doesn't deign to answer. He can imagine Jimmy making the foolish decision to stay behind as a spirit- he recalls his vessel's love for his family- but the thought that Jimmy could be sent to Hell had genuinely never entered his mind. "Why are you claiming Jimmy is in Hell?"

"Maybe 'cause I saw him?" the demon says in disbelief. "And I do mean 'saw' in the traditional, _very_ non-biblical sense." The demon grins, and the dislike within Castiel sharpens.

"You tortured him."

"'course. Him and his little friend."

"A friend?" This is unusual. Hell is a place of pain, and there is great pain in solitude. Castiel should know- the singing of his garrison gracing his ears was avidly missed when he fell. Even now, when he is as far from alone as a person can be-

_let us OUT_

\- he is still plagued by loneliness, and a strange sense of loss. But now is not a time to dwell on the Winchesters, so he focuses on the demon's gloating.

"I know, right?" it says. "Touch of genius, that. Turns out with all the sinnin' that's goin' on lately, our torturer-to-torturee ration is getting' kinda low. And well, you know how it is- you don't wanna leave a job half-done. Reflects badly on the whole company."

"Forcing humans to torture is no novel idea," Castiel dismisses. "Dean Winchester shed blood in Hell."

"And your favourite meatsack just _happened_ to be the righteous man. What, you think we were lettin' anyone who asked hop off the rack and pick up a knife? Give me a break."

"Has Jimmy tortured?"

"I mean, most of our customers would plead on their goddamn _knees_ for the chance to cut someone up-"

"Has Jimmy tortured?" Castiel demands. Other voices- not his own- say the words with him. The demon gulps, but quickly recovers itself.

"Tortured, been tortured, it's a pretty neat cycle. You make 'em fight and let the guilt build up, slowly like, and then you can nudge it in different ways. Makes for one helluva show when they finally break."

"And what happens then?"

The demon grins. "Whaddya think? We hit 'reset'."

Castiel has heard enough. He destroys the demon with a touch of his hand, igniting its screams and watching it burn, before turning and leaving.

It has been too long since he visited Hell.

* * *

Sarah takes pregnancy as she takes all things- in her stride. At first, she throws up in the mornings, but that stops after a couple of weeks. She does get undoubtedly more emotional, and he swears to never let her- or anybody else- forget 'the time Sarah cried at Animal Planet'.

As for Nick, he doesn't have any other major freak-outs, but he has his moments.

' **boy'** he texts Brittany one day. It's been a few hours since the scan, and the fear is starting to outweigh the excitement.

' **which bar?'** comes the reply.

' **not in a bar'**

' **are u freaking out?'**

' **a little'**

' **see you in 10'-** and then, another text, immediately afterwards- ' **bringing coke'**

And so she arrives with a six-pack of Coca-Cola and a blue card proudly stating 'it's a boy!'

"Not for another five months," Nick grumbles.

"Then I'm getting in there early," Britt retorts, kissing Sarah on the cheek.

"It's lovely," Sarah says, hugging her. "Thank you."

"No problem. How're the cravings?"

"Awful," Nick answers for her. "She made me go and buy her Pop Tarts at 2AM."

"A perfectly sensible thing to do," Britt says. "Sarah, is he always this whiny?"

"You bring out the worst in him," Sarah says.

"I try my best. C'mon, I want to see scan pictures. If your baby's not already flipping off the camera I'll consider it a serious failing on both your parts."

He's not, but Britt doesn't seem to mind. Nick can't help but find what he's seeing funny. Brittany, with her scraped-back ash-blond hair, and her active hostility towards makeup, and her torn jeans which she refuses to replace based on the principle that ' _I've only had them for four months; they're not getting out of it that easily'_ has always been very vocal in her utter distaste of pregnancy, childbirth and babies in general. That same Brittany is currently sat next to his wife, discussing names and colours for nurseries and staring at Sarah's baby care catalogues with wide, shining eyes.

"He's _gorgeous,_ Sarah," she says for about the fifth time, gazing fondly at the scan.

"I know," Sarah says proudly. If Nick's honest, all the baby scans he's ever seen have looked the same, but he still thinks their son's starting out strong. With any luck he'll inherit Sarah's looks, along with Sarah's intelligence, her personality and her outlook on life.

Nick hopes that the kid gets his music taste, though, because it's just _better._

Returning from the kitchen with another Coke, he stops to grin at the sight at Sarah and Britt chatting animatedly together. When his old friend had started to re-enter his life, Sarah had admitted she was concerned that Nick might like Britt.

"You know, _like_ her," she had said, fiddling awkwardly with her t-shirt. In retrospect, hysterical laughter had probably _not_ been the correct response, but he couldn't help it. Britt was… Britt. She'd been his sponsor once, though AA had quickly stopped officially referring to her as such once it became apparent that she was likely to throw somebody's glass of vodka _over_ them if they tried to drink it.

After that she had become his best friend, and he honestly couldn't be attracted to her if she was stood in front of him in lingerie and heels. It sounds cheesy, but he can't imagine ever wanting _any_ woman who isn't Sarah, not properly. He had told Sarah as much and she had believed him, and now Sarah and Britt get on extraordinarily well. Alarmingly well. He doesn't trust cackling women, and they tend to cackle purely to unnerve him.

Sarah looks up and nudges Britt. "Nick's back. Move your arse."

"Nick can sit on the floor."

"Nick will sit on the both of you if you aren't careful," Nick warns. Pulling a face, Britt shifts over so that Nick can sit next to Sarah. He slides an arm around her waist and she nestles into him.

"What do you think of blue for the nursery?" she asks.

"Blue," he says. "Good colour. I approve."

"We could go and check out paint this weekend," Sarah says. She feels him tense and quickly adds "I mean, if you want."

Somebody pokes him very hard in the ribs, and Nick glares at Britt. She shrugs unapologetically. Sometimes it's way too easy for him to freak out and shut down, and he has to appreciate her efforts in hauling him back to the here and now.

He thinks about a blue nursery- imagines painting it, imagines standing in it with Sarah by his side, imagines laying a small, sleeping baby down into the crib. The image fills him with a glow warm enough to temporarily push the anxieties away.

"I'd love to," he tells Sarah. At their feet, Banjo thumps his tail appreciatively.

"That's everyone in agreement, then," Sarah says, rubbing the dog's belly with her foot.

As the pregnancy carries on, Nick veers between cautiously optimistic and flat-out terrified. He tries to be honest with Sarah about it, but he hates making her think he doesn't want the baby. He wants this kid. Hell, he's worried _because_ of how badly he wants this kid. He wants to do it right, and not screw up, and give his son every single good thing in the world, and what if he can't?

Time passes. They buy the crib and the rocker and the high-chair, and they steadily amass enough toys and games to supply the entire of Delaware. They talk about names, but they both want to see their son before they decide anything for sure. Nick keeps on hoping that things will magically click into place, but nope. Even when Sarah is eight months pregnant, the idea that he's having a kid still feels like everything's balanced on a knife's edge; like things are just as likely to tip into 'worst thing I could have done' as 'best decision of my life'.

A few weeks before Sarah's due date, Nick is standing in the supermarket when a boy jumping his way along the railing missing his footing and slips. It's not a bad fall, but you wouldn't know by the way he wails. Nick's heart jumps into his throat and he's halfway to the kid before he even thinks about it.

"You okay?" he asks, reaching out to help him up. "Hey, shh, it's okay."

"I hurt my knee," the little boy whimpers, clinging to Nick's arms and letting himself be pulled upright.

"Did you?" Nick asks, crouching down in front of him. He scans the crowd, but he can't see anyone rushing forwards to claim the boy. "Can I have a look?"

He nods uncertainly, pushing a hand over his face to wipe the tears and snot away. Nick gently examines the wound through the tear in the boy's jeans, moving his leg this way and that.

"I see," Nick says solemnly.

"It hurts," the boy says again.

"I know it does, bud," Nick says. "You're being really brave. How old are you, eight?"

The boy is obviously much younger, and he shrieks in delight, distress temporarily forgotten. "I'm five!"

"Five?" Nick asks, eyes widening in feigned amazement. "I thought you were tons older than that with how brave you were being!"

"Really?" the boy says eagerly.

"Totally," Nick says. "Your mom must be really proud of you. Is she around?"

"She said to sit and wait for her," the boy tells him. "That's what I was doing."

Nick's mouth twists with a hastily aborted smirk; 'running around climbing on things' isn't quite the same as 'sitting and waiting'. In all fairness, he supposes there were still chairs involved. A woman rounds the corner and breaks into a run.

"Peter?" she calls.

"Mommy!" the boy named Peter shouts as she scoops him into her arms. Nick stands nearby, trying to look less awkward than he feels.

"He tripped," he explains as the woman strokes her son's hair, looking at Nick questioningly. "I don't think he's hurt, though."

"He thought I was eight!" Peter says breathlessly. "'cause I was so brave, that's what he said! He thought I was eight! He was real nice, mom."

"Was he now?" the woman asks, lips quirking. Nick grins and waves it off.

"He's a cute kid," he tells her instead.

"You've got me there. How old's yours?" she asks Nick, catching him off guard.

"What? No, I don't…"

"Oh, God, I'm sorry," she says, flustered. "I don't know why I assumed- I mean, I didn't think-"

"I've got one on the way," he offers to spare her the embarrassment. "My wife's pregnant with our first." Her face lights up, and they exchange the usual details about 'how-long-until' and 'boy-or-girl' and 'you're-not-going-to-sleep-for-the-next-three-years' until Peter starts to grow restless.

"One moment, sweetie," she says, ruffling his hair affectionately before turning back to Nick. "Thank you so much for taking care of him."

"It's no problem, honest."

"You're going to make a great father," she says sincerely.

"Thanks," he mumbles, trying to laugh it off.

"No, I really do mean it. You can tell. Some people are just born parents, you know?"

"I guess," he says faintly, more than a little stunned. The woman smiles warmly and Peter waves merrily back at Nick as she leads him away.

Nick eventually remembers to pick up the basket he'd abandoned running to help the boy, laden with prawn cocktail crisps (Sarah's latest passion) and a huge cardboard box, covered in Disney characters. Looking down at the diapers he finds that, for some reason, he can't stop smiling.

* * *

Pulling Dean Winchester from Hell had taken effort. Admittedly, it had taken less effort than Castiel had envisioned, and he now understands that the demons of Hell had been waiting for him ever since Dean picked up a knife. There had been fighting, of course, but most had turned their backs and hummed quietly to themselves, waiting for the glorious, inevitable Michael/Lucifer battle.

(Heh. 'Inevitable'. The word, he remembers, had meant something once.)

Pulling Sam out of Hell was harder, as he'd caused enough trouble that Hell _and_ Heaven were more than happy for him to rot in the Cage for the rest of time. Castiel thinks that rescuing Jimmy Novak- a man who shouldn't even _be_ there- should be easy by comparison.

"Castiel," the first demon he encounters hisses in an ancient tongue, one lost to the Earth for thousands of years. Castiel knows every language ever spoken. This was never a favourite. "You've taken a wrong turn, angel. This isn't your domain."

Castiel grimaces when he hears 'angel', but there are more pressing matters at hand than terminology. "You have something which belongs to Heaven."

"My beautiful face?"

There will be many more demons, and they'll all make similar comments which they will find amusing and that Castiel would compare to being bitten by a flea, and so Castiel destroys it without too much thought. Deep within him, something ancient begins to whisper.

_This place is closer to home than the others we have seen,_ hundreds of voices hiss as one. Purgatory probably does have more in common with Hell than with Heaven or Earth, but Castiel has no need for that information at present. He ignores the voices, pushes them down and lets his Grace silence them, swallow them whole.

Hell is not a physical space, and as such it can become anything and everything that is required of it. This makes finding a person- especially when you don't know where to begin looking- difficult. Castiel closes his eyes and reaches out, dragging the tumult inside of him out too to reinforce the search. The combined strength is enough to let him sort through the squirming, screeching mass of souls until he locates a familiar, weakly pulsing signal.

The last time he came here, Hell was a line that never reached the end; Castiel understands now that that was merely one cell in an ever-growing hive. The sights he passes as he travels seem to suggest Hell is placing a greater importance on psychological tortures as of late. The change is a disturbing one. It causes the souls within him to bumble around and twist with pleasure, and the things he doesn't think about-

_\- home was different, though, not quite the same flavour of blood. And everybody had more teeth, but oh, none were as big as ours-_

\- keep on writhing around in their usual jagged way. Castiel travels through hallways and caverns and lakes of water and lakes of fire, and moves through cities living and dead and homes long forgotten and, most unnerving of all, a room of nothingness, with no light or shape or ground or sky. The senselessness throws him, but the souls bound to him take control and urge him on until he stumbles out the other side.

"Just where do you think you're going?" a voice calls before he can proceed any further. Castiel turns, but is unconcerned. He has nothing to fear.

"I am here to restore Jimmy Novak to his rightful place in Heaven."

"And you think we just reached up and snatched him from you?" the demon says, the lips of its vessel frowning. "Raphael more or less hand-delivered him to us. _Your_ people threw him down."

"Raphael is nothing of mine," Castiel says smoothly. "He has been dealt with, as will all who maltreated myself or Jimmy. I suggest you step aside and remove yourself from that category."

"But we don't give up our playthings easily," a new voice says from behind him. Another demon. Castiel looks around to see ten, fifteen, twenty more emerging from the dark. They keep on coming, whores with ripped tights and smeared make-up, bloated children from famines in Africa, businessmen in suave suits, elderly women in saris, mangled true faces proudly mounted on every conceivable kind of vessel.

When the final demon takes its position, Castiel carries out a quick scan. One demon is easy for an angel to handle. Three takes some concentration. Five is a challenge, and for numbers above eight, it is usually advised that the angel in question drafts in help. There are one hundred and twenty-eight demons surrounding him. In terms of relativity, if all of Hell was an ocean, they would fill an eggcup.

"It's been a long time since we had an _angel_ to play with," one eventually says, voice high and excited.

Castiel smiles serenely. He closes his eyes and lets his head loll back, and releases the power of around nine million souls.

* * *

Amelia's labour lasts for nineteen hours. Jimmy has nothing to scale this against, but to him, it sounds like a very, very long time. It certainly feels that way, for both of them.

His wife, whilst strong, has never been fierce. Tears prick at her eyes as she lies in bed and grits her teeth, her slim fingers squeezing his with a level of force he never knew she could exert. He tries not to wince and focuses on muttering soothing things to her, pushing the hair gently out of her face.

It's difficult. It's unquestionably awful for her, but it's awful for him too. Amelia is in _pain._ No matter how many weak smiles she gives him, it's obvious that she's suffering, and he can't do a single thing to fix it. Near the end, when the pain is reaching its peak, she looks at him and says, feebly, "I'm glad you're here." That makes him feel less useless, but not by much.

She lets out strings of swear words, but they're under her breath, and only right at the end does she start to shout. He keeps her hand tight in his and prays silently that the delivery will be quick, that the baby will be healthy, that Amelia will stay safe. He's been mentally uttering the same prayer for weeks now and this time, God seems to get the message. Claire is born within the minute, letting out a ferocious yell as soon as she's able to.

"That's a good sign," the midwife chuckles as a blur of people speedily weigh, clean and swaddle the baby in a towel. Amelia falls back on the pillow, exhausted, but the light in her eyes when they place Claire on her chest burns brighter than any star.

"She's beautiful," Amelia says softly. "Look at her, Jimmy. She's beautiful."

"She takes after her mother," he says, dropping a kiss onto Amelia's forehead. "Can I hold her?"

"Of course," Amelia says. Jimmy eases the bundle into his arms, and Claire looks up at him with huge eyes.

"Hi, baby," Jimmy whispers through his smile as he brushes a finger against her hot cheek. "Welcome to the world."

She is quiet now, with wisps of blonde hair already plastered to her head, and they tell him she seems healthy. "The perfect specimen," one nurse jokes. He finds he can't stop gazing at his daughter; can't stop gently touching her hair, her fingers, her toes. She is real. She is here. Claire is peaceful and perfect and she is theirs, all theirs.

Later, when Amelia and Claire are both getting some well-deserved rest, he finds himself standing in their room just to watch them sleep.

"Thank you," he murmurs quietly. "Thank you, thank you, thank you." There are no other words; any other thoughts are immediately swallowed by the unshakeable knowledge that he is blessed, he is blessed.

It takes several minutes for Jimmy to convince himself to leave, but he knows he has to. He has a lot of people to call, and a lot of good news to give.


	6. Chapter 6

In the human year 1945, Castiel had been stationed at Nagasaki.

It was a well-known fact within the garrison that Castiel, whilst in awe of all his Father's creation, took particular delight in Japan. There was something beautiful in the place, a kind of tranquillity which at times almost reminded him of Heaven (or at least, how he chose to remember Heaven).

He remembers one fight, millennia ago, in which he was badly injured. It was not for the first and certainly not for the final time, but it was severe enough to cause his family fear. He remembers Gabriel visiting, neither of them in vessels because there _were_ no vessels to be taken yet, and looking at him with concern rather than his customary smirk.

"Castiel," Gabriel had murmured. "You ought to be more careful, little brother."

"I am not _little,_ " Castiel had objected. There was not yet any fixed way to measure 'time', but he still knew that a substantial amount had passed since his creation.

"You are to me," Gabriel had replied, and when he held out his hand it was full of petals, from the tree which would one day become a cherry blossom. He had conjured more, and then more still, until the air around Castiel was thick with blossom and the sweet smell of safety.

But that was back in the days when Gabriel was still a brother, rather than a trickster or an adversary or yet another casualty of war. Those were the days when Nagasaki was a love rather than a memory that throbbed, one he now treats much as humans treat a rotting tooth- unwilling to examine closely, unable to leave alone.

He recalls Nagasaki now. He remembers hearing the words of an older, wiser brother-

" _It was God's will, Castiel. It had to happen."_

\- and standing in the glow of the explosion, the taste of death and chaos and terror pouring into him until he thought he would burst with it. He remembers a whisper of doubt, successfully unheeded for thousands of years, brushing against his heart in time with the ash brushing against his cheek.

He had loved Nagasaki.

He remembers all this now because some would consider the devastation he unleashes comparable. And oh, humans are paper-thin skin and glass-rod bones to the demons' steel and hate, but Castiel is more than both, more than anything seen before. When the light clears and his eyes open, the besieging circle is gone. Not even their vessels have been left behind.

It took less than twenty percent of what it took to kill one archangel to destroy one hundred and twenty-eight demons, gathered in the place where they are strongest. He finds that amusing, but doesn't stop to dwell on it. Jimmy is nearby, and the nearer Castiel draws, the stranger the soul feels. It's definitely Jimmy's, but somehow it doesn't quite line up with that of the man he first spoke to Illinois. Castiel begins to move faster. He doesn't know how much time he has left to waste.

* * *

In the end, they painted the nursery yellow.

It looks good, actually. The spray of plastic stars that took Nick two hours to put up ('self-adhesive!', the packet had lied) are giving out a warm glow of light, just enough to let him make out the tiny form lying in the crib. He tiptoes inside, shutting the door gently behind him.

Sarah's in bed asleep, something she has very much earned. Nick's already in his pyjamas, ready to join her, but there's something he wants to do first. It's kinda bizarre, kinda backwards and more than a little sappy, but it feels important all the same.

"Hey there, little man," he greets softly, settling down on the floor by the crib. The baby's awake, but peaceful.

"We kinda got off to a bad start, didn't we?" he says, like his son is nothing more than vaguely-known colleague from work. "Not that that's a new thing for me. The first time I met your mom, I tried to get her to go on a date with me, and then I threw up on her when she said no. No, wait, that wasn't like- I didn't do it on purpose or anything, I was dru- actually, no, pretend you never heard that. Any of that. Fuck it, I'll start over." He pauses. "You also never heard _that_."

He shifts in place, crossing his legs underneath him, and tries again.

"So hi. I'm, uh, your dad. I seriously hope that sounds more natural to you than it does to me. See, I never really thought I'd have kids. I mean, I used to say 'yeah, I'd like to', but I never actually thought I _would_. I always figured I was too stupid, too screwed up. I know, right? Wah, wah, wah, daddy's throwing himself a pity party. I'm not trying to, honest. I just… think you should know."

"Because it turns out I somehow pulled my act together long enough to have a son, and that son is you. Congrats. They tell me I've got to teach you stuff, so I think we should start early- get ahead of all those other brats, right? The first thing you need to know is that your mother is the most amazing woman on the planet."

The baby gurgles.

"I'm glad you agree," Nick says solemnly. "The second thing you need to know is that your godmothers are fantastic yet terrifying women. Do _not_ try and pull the wool over Britt's eyes, and God help you if you ever try and beat Sandra at poker."

"Third thing- Banjo is the master of the puppy-dog eyes. Prepare yourself for that if you want any of the food you buy to actually make it into your own mouth."

"What else? Umm, the microwave will lie to you. It'll tell you it's got ten seconds left and then keep on spinning for an hour, so remember to pay attention, because I once spent a whole week scrubbing off melted plastic. Don't play any of your mother's CDs- trust me, you'll thank me for it. When you're older, you can drink if you want, but lie to me about it and I _will_ send you to Britt for scare lessons. Don't ask about your grandparents on my side, because you're better off not knowing. Your mother believes in God- I'm not so sure. You can believe whatever you want. If you're gay, that's fine. If you're straight, that's fine too. If you like rap music, I'm sure I'll find a way to love you anyway."

"Damn, there's a lot to get through, isn't there?" he says, running a hand through his hair. "I guess we've got a lot of time. But this last one's important, so listen closely: I love you." He pauses to try and figure out how to word the next part.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm still friggin' terrified of trying to do any of this, but I don't care. Fact is, if someone's going to blunder their way through looking after you, I want it to be me. There is literally nothing on Earth that could make me quit now, so sorry, but you're stuck with me. I can't promise that I'm always gonna do the right thing, but I can promise that I'll try- and that, no matter what happens, I'm always going to love you. We clear?"

He waits, stands and nods once, firmly. "Good. Glad we had this talk. We've got this neat speaker thing set up," he says, tapping the monitor, "so if you want one of us, just shout. Like, a lot. Your mom and I are pretty deep sleepers."

He looks down at the baby in the crib and their eyes meet. Without realising he's doing it, Nick smiles.

"See you later, kid," he says softly, and the smile stays on his face long after he falls asleep.

* * *

Castiel moves swiftly along the wall, fingers trailing against the rock, and then comes to a sudden halt. This is the place.

Hell is a mass of spirit with very little flesh to interrupt, and it makes locating individual souls much easier. Jimmy's doesn't make for pleasant reading. It's all the wrong shape, with some parts folded and others stretched out. Sam Winchester's soul felt as though it had been flayed; this one feels as though it's been placed on a rack and then crushed into a box far too small, over and over again. Castiel has never encountered a soul in this condition, and if he wasn't above such things, he would feel scared.

He debates looking for the entrance before just blasting straight through the rock. The cavern is huge, ceiling so high that even in his true form he more than likely wouldn't reach it, and it stretches out like a football stadium. Some distance away are two motionless forms, lying side by side.

As Castiel draws closer, he can see just how bad things are. Both men appear going through some form of accelerated healing process- a technique, he believes, which originated from Lucifer. Powerful angels are able to heal with a single touch, and the creatures of Hell have been taught how to take this process and distort it, dragging it out in order to cause excruciating amounts of pain. Throw in the fact that no matter how grievous the injury, death is not an option, and torture in Hell becomes something of a circular process.

Something even more concerning, he thinks, is the state of the souls. Jimmy's is… awful, but the other man's is incredibly alarming too. It takes Castiel a moment to recognise him through the thick blood caking his face. He supposes the demons thought it would be amusing to keep a vessel of Heaven alongside a vessel of Hell.

Nick's soul is every bit as battered as Jimmy's, but it seems to have gone in the opposite direction. While Jimmy's is sprawling and distorted, Nick's is condensed, almost… crushed. It reminds Castiel of those seen in the near-dead, in the dying.

The bodies are in equally poor condition: a quick scan tells Castiel that Jimmy has twelve broken bones, two of which are completely shattered, along with one burst eardrum and mild brain damage. Nick hasn't come off much better, with a total of fifty-four gaping cuts to his legs, arms, chest, stomach and face, both eyeballs slashed and bloodied. The injuries are horrific, and it doesn't take Castiel long to work out that they inflicted them on each other.

Up close, Castiel can see that, contrary to what he had first thought, Jimmy is not still. Nick is completely unmoving, but Jimmy is twisting and writhing, tossing his head about- perhaps, Castiel thinks, a result of the brain damage. Jimmy is muttering to himself, a steady drone of words Castiel can't quite make out.

"Jimmy?" Castiel asks. If the man notices him, he doesn't react. Castiel clamps a firm hand on Jimmy's shoulder and, in the time it takes Jimmy to blink, completes the healing process. His bones link together, sculpted and smooth; his hearing is restored and the cells of his brain die or divide as necessary to replace lost and spoiled tissue. Even the blood and dirt and ash leave the skin, marks that look as though they have been there as long as Jimmy has.

"Jimmy," Castiel says again now that the man is healed. Jimmy's head snaps up and his eyes widen.

"Castiel?" he breathes out.

"Yes," Castiel confirms, ignoring the sniggers of

_\- Are you sure?-_

from within and straightening up. Jimmy stares up from the floor, and Castiel stiffly proffers a hand in case he requires help standing. Jimmy grabs Castiel's hand in both of his and lurches to his feet, gabbling all the while.

"Castiel, you have to help, you have to help us," he says, all in one breath. "You have to help us stop it, I know we can stop it and Nick won't talk anymore but when he talked he knew we could stop it, even if he didn't say, there has to be a way or there's no _point,_ see? So there has to be a way so-"

Castiel's brow furrows as he listens. "Jimmy, focus."

"I did it, Castiel, I did this, all of this, it was my fault and I'm so sorry, I'm so, so fucking-" the word, which Castiel appreciates to be a significant curse word in the English language, is not one he has heard leave Jimmy's lips before- "sorry. I didn't mean to, I didn't _want_ to, but I couldn't stop it, I wasn't strong enough, I couldn't stop it, I'm so sorry, I couldn't stop it but I _can_ stop it I can I can I can-"

"Jimmy," he says again, more forcefully this time, but Jimmy is taking no notice. Castiel offers a cursory glance to the other man and wonders if he'll get more sense from him. He manages to push Jimmy away- not an easy feat- and cross over to Nick. He presses two fingers to Nick's forehead, watches the battered body lurch into health, and waits.

Nick opens his eyes but still appears unseeing.

"Nick," Castiel says. "My name is Castiel. Can you stand?"

There is no reply. After a few seconds, Nick blinks, like his eyelids are so heavy that he can't stop them from dropping closed.

Castiel doesn't understand. The men are clearly traumatised, but Dean Winchester's experience in Hell was equally harrowing; Sam Winchester's arguably worse. The combat alone should not have caused this.

"I thought we boarded up all the holes in the skirting-boards," a demon sighs from across the cavern, melting out of the shadows. "I'm sick of infestations of _angel_. Maybe we need to start putting down poison."

"What have you done to these men?" Castiel says, turning to face the demon. It's wearing the skin of a businessman- slicked back hair, rectangular wire-rimmed glasses, a dark blue suit. The demon smiles at Castiel as it draws closer.

"Tom and Jerry here?" it says. "Nothing they didn't do to themselves."

"You did more than make them fight," Castiel says.

"What, pumping them full of demon-strength fury wasn't enough?"

"No. You've altered their minds."

"Maybe a teensy bit," the demon admits. It takes a step forwards and Castiel holds a hand up.

"You will go no further," he says evenly. The demon arches an eyebrow, but remains where it is. Castiel tries to decide which man is more likely to be receptive to help, and eventually decides that Nick is of no use at present.

Jimmy is huddled on the floor, staring at Castiel like an infant not understanding its world. Sentences still dribble from his lips and he blinks a little too often.

"I am sorry, Jimmy," Castiel says, crouching down in front of him, "for what has happened to you."

"Sorry," Jimmy repeats. "Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry."

"After I have saved Heaven and Earth, I will turn my attentions to Hell," Castiel promises. "The pain you have suffered will soon be over."

"Over," Jimmy mumbles. "Soon be over, soon be over, could be over _now_ if I could… need to stop it, have to stop it, have to fight, have to fight!" He looks at Castiel desperately, trying to make him understand. "Have to fight," he repeats.

"No," Castiel tells him. "You don't. Not anymore."

Jimmy shakes his head, frustrated. "Not him, it! I have to fight _it,_ I have to fight them, not Nick, I can't fight Nick, Nick, I think-" Jimmy beckons for Castiel to come closer, and he obeys. "I think Nick is broken," Jimmy breathes, wide eyes watching Castiel's face closely.

Castiel is unsure of how to reply. "He can be fixed," he eventually says.

"Can he now?" the demon says, amused.

"Another word and I reduce you to dust," Castiel answers without turning around. A large part of him believes that this task is petty, beneath him- but another, stronger part thinks that it's his fault the men are here at all. Jimmy was his vessel, and if Castiel had succeeded in preventing Lucifer's rising… one day, Castiel thinks with some bitterness, he'll finally do something right.

He catches hold of himself. That pain is old and has ceased to be applicable. He's no longer desperate angel, clutching at equivocal orders and fickle humans for help. Now, he is God. Jimmy and Nick are both under his protection. He is capable of helping them, and he will.

"Fix it," Jimmy whispers. "Fix it, I can fix it, if I fight it I can fix it, have to _try_. Useless, not trying hard enough, Amelia would hate- Claire would- have to fight it, have to fix it, I think Nick is broken. My fault. I think Nick is broken and it's my fault."

And by his side Nick never moves, never stirs, barely even blinks.

"This will be unpleasant," Castiel warns. He can feel the basic shape of Jimmy's soul with ease, but he needs more information to help in any way. The process here will be less intrusive than when carried out on Earth, but soul-reading is never a pleasant experience all the same. He lays a hand against Jimmy's cheek and the man screams in pain, eyes rolling back in his head.

_Power, all of that power under your fingers, doesn't it feel good? Just reach out and-_

Castiel ignores the voices. He is powerful enough now; there is no reason to be greedy, and he has no intention of taking advice from the ancient horrors tightening tentacles around his grace.

_You mean you're scared, angel? Scared of another set of teeth snapping inside your soft flesh?_

He closes his eyes and focuses on Jimmy's soul. It's strange- almost clogged, saturated with something unknown. He deepens his search and finds that lodged far, far inside is what, in a metaphysical manner, feels almost like a crystal. It's tiny and rock-hard, and its influence spider-webs out to cover the entire soul. Castiel knows what this is now, but he's never seen it on this level.

"Guilt," he says. "You infected them with guilt."

"That's like saying we infected them with _cells,_ " the demon objects. "The guilt was already there. We just… altered it. Condensed, focused, amplified. Turned up the volume bit-by-bit."

"The difference between them," Castiel says, looking from Jimmy to Nick. "It makes no sense."

The demon snorts. "You know, everyone says demons forget our humanity, but that's not quite right. I don't remember what it was like to be a walking fleshbag, sure, but I remember how one works. Or maybe I've learned. Journey doesn't matter; destination's the same."

"Get to your point," Castiel growls.

"They're messy, these creatures, flawed. Everything's linked to everything- nothing is ever _pure._ If you cut a monster, it feels pain. If you cut a human _,_ they feel pain, yes, but not just physical. From that, they feel fear. The front half of that fear sharpens into anger, the middle blossoms into hope, and the end dissolves into helplessness. That spawns shame, one of the many flavours of guilt they so love to taste. And that's _before_ you even get onto the masochists," the demons says out the corner of his mouth, like he's sharing gossip. Castiel ignores this, and the demon continues.

"What I'm saying here is that one reactant can lead to a thousand different products. What do you do when you can't win?"

Castiel believes this is is one of those questions that aren't supposed to be answered, and so he remains quiet.

"Turns out it's multiple choice. Option A- you keep on trying and the guilt gives you energy. You throw every failure into the next attempt, desperate that you _need_ to get it right. I can, I can!" the demon pipes in the high-pitched cry of a child.

"And then there's B," it continues, voice back to normal. "You lie down and give up, and the guilt decays into hatred until you can't even think of a reason to sit up anymore."

The demon spreads a hand towards Jimmy. "A," it says- and then, gesturing towards Nick, "B".

Using emotion in torture is a precarious technique, but one which can scar better than any blade. This is something Heaven has long appreciated, but never like this, never to this degree. Castiel looks at the two men again with sadness in his eyes. Given force and time, any emotion can mutate into madness, and Jimmy and Nick have been in a slowly tightening vice for the equivalent of nearly a hundred years.

"So what do you think?" the demon grins, its lecture over.

"Whenever I think the torturers of Hell can descend no further, they take me by surprise," Castiel says softly.

"Thank you."

Suddenly, Castiel feels a frantic tug at his sleeve. He turns down towards Jimmy, who is kneeling by his side, hanging onto his coat and looking up at him. "You're not human," he states.

"No," Castiel says cautiously. Jimmy rocks back and laughs, the kind of laughter devoid of any amusement or control.

"Not human!" he gasps. "Not even human. _Nobody's_ human. Only me but not even me, not anymore. Need to get back to human, need to stay human, need to _stay-_ "

Castiel lays a hand on the side of Jimmy's face again and closes his eyes. Resolutely ignoring Jimmy's screams and spasms, he reaches deep inside Jimmy's soul until he finds the small, black knot that's causing all of this. He curls tendrils of grace around it and pours power into his next action.

He rips; Jimmy screams; nothing breaks free.


	7. Chapter 7

"Come on, hurry up," Jimmy teases.

"I'm _hurrying,_ " Claire pouts, with the kind of indignation that only a five year old can truly master. "Mommy's not ready yet either."

"Mommy's even slower than you are," he agrees.

"Am I now?" Amelia challenges, entering the room. Claire giggles delightedly and runs to her side, and Amelia scoops her up and hugs her tight.

"You look beautiful, sweetheart," she tells Claire.

"So do you," Claire says, reaching out and gently touching Amelia's long blonde hair, hair she's brushed until it shines. Amelia smiles and sets Claire back down. Jimmy remembers when he used to be able to lift Claire up and sit her on his hip for an hour, sometimes more. It's always disconcerting to realise their little girl is growing up.

"What about me?" Jimmy asks, spreading his arms. "Don't I look beautiful?"

Claire giggles. " _Well..."_ she says.

"Maybe you should paint daddy's nails," Amelia suggests.

"No!" Jimmy says.

"Yes!" Claire says.

"I don't suit pink," he protests.

"Everybody suits pink," Claire replies sombrely.

"Have you got the camera, Jimmy?" Amelia asks.

"Um. Yes?"

"Have you got it _on_ you?"

"Ahh. No." He grins sheepishly.

Amelia rolls her eyes good-naturedly and clatters up the stairs to go and fetch it. This whole tradition was his idea, but 'where things are' is very much Amelia territory, along with 'shopping' and 'disciplining Claire'. Jimmy is officially not allowed to do either of these things, as the last time he went shopping he returned with a grand total of four of the listed twenty-two items (and without a list, which was probably where the problem arose). As for the last time he tried telling Claire off, he somehow ended up playing dress-up instead. He thinks he was a pirate at one stage.

But what Claire buys, Jimmy cooks, and when something breaks it's him that fixes it. They share the school run and doing the dishes, and they gave up on swapping who read to Claire at night because neither of them ever wanted to miss out. All in all, he thinks they've got this parenting thing split pretty fairly.

Amelia's gone back to work and whilst they both hate leaving Claire with a child-minder, she adores Keira. It turns out that selling ad space is even duller than Jimmy had imagined, but never mind. There are other things, he reminds himself as Claire chatters away happily about a game she played that day, which matter more.

"Thanks," Jimmy grins at Amelia as she hands the camera over. She kisses him on the cheek and takes Claire by the hand.

"Fireplace?"

"Fireplace," he confirms. Amelia and Claire take their places in front of the (completely fake, but what can you do?) fire while he sets the camera up. There is a special place in Heaven, he thinks, for the man who created the time-delay setting.

"Okay, ready?" he asks.

"Ready," Amelia and Claire chorus. He hits the button and rushes over to join them. Claire stands between her parents and he rests one hand on her shoulder, sliding the other arm around Amelia's waist. They smile and wait. A few seconds later there's a click and a flash, and the picture is taken.

"It actually worked first time," Jimmy marvels as he examines the small screen.

"And it only took six years to get right," Amelia teases. He frowns sulkily, so she pulls him close by his jumper and kisses him. Claire huffs disapprovingly.

"Sorry, sweetie," Jimmy apologies to Claire, shooting a conspiratory grin at his wife. "I'll get this printed off tomorrow, yeah Ames?"

"Sounds good," Amelia says.

"Daddy?" Claire asks.

"Yeah, baby?"

"Can I see the book?"

"Of course you can." Jimmy fetches the heavy book from the shelf and sits down with it on his lap. Amelia heads through to the kitchen as Claire clambers up next to him, peering over his arm as he opens the front page.

"That's the day we brought you back from the hospital," Jimmy begins. "See how small you were?"

Claire nods intently, absorbing the information like she might be tested on it later. "When was that?"

"Five years ago. The next one is when you were one- see how you got bigger?"

"And then I'm two in this one?" she asks, turning the page.

"Uh-huh," he confirms. This isn't the first time they've looked at the album together, but neither of them ever get bored of it.

The book's only empty plastic and five flimsy pictures, but it's already become one of his most treasured positions. Claire goes from a baby in their arms to a toddler clinging to their legs to a little girl standing proudly in front of them. It's the same three people in the same place, in five different years, and it's already telling a story he wants to read the rest of.

"How come there are so many empty bits?" she asks, flicking through all the unused wallets.

"Because we're going to keep using this for a long time, honey," he says, as Amelia emerges from the kitchen clutching two mugs of coffee. "Maybe one day, when you're big and have your own children, you can take pictures with them and put those in here."

Amelia places one mug by Jimmy and sits down next to Claire with her own. "That'd be lovely," she agrees wistfully.

"Then I'll do that," Claire says decisively. "I'll be in it, and so will my husband if I have one, and so will our children, and you two can be too if you want, I guess."

"That's a nice idea," Amelia says, as her and Jimmy try to stifle their laughter.

Jimmy knows they're not being completely serious, but if he's honest, he hopes Claire carries the album on. Even if she doesn't, he wants there to be a picture every year for as long as there can be: whether they have more kids or not, whether good or bad things happen, come prosper or ruin or sadness or happiness. He wants this to go on forever, a piece of them that says so much in so little, that says 'there was love here once, and that love will never die'.

"I promise," Claire insists. "A new picture every year, right daddy?"

"That's right, sweetheart," he says, squeezing her hand. There's not really any more to say.

* * *

Castiel doesn't understand.

"Something not clear, angel?" the demon sniggers. "Or are you going by 'God' now? Because, to give you some feedback, you aren't coming across as particularly omnipotent."

Castiel tries again, Jimmy's howls reaching higher levels than ever. The tiny bundle of guilt and pain won't come loose, won't even budge. Altering human emotions is difficult, but it's never before proven impossible.

"Whatever spell you have used, reverse it," he orders the demon.

"Didn't use a spell," the demon sighs, like Castiel really should know better.

"A sigil, then."

"Nope."

"Possession."

"Listen, if you want to play twenty questions for the rest of time-"

"It doesn't _matter_ ," Castiel snarls, losing patience. "Whatever you have done, undo it."

"You make it sound so simple," the demon murmurs. "You might have heard of a thing called free will? I seem to remember it causing you a few problems, actually."

Castiel doesn't even flinch. "You've been poisoning them with a demon's rage. There is no free will in that."

"Nah, not in the fighting. But in the _feeling_? Like I said, you'd be surprised how little guilt you need to provide to get this kind of result. The yield really is spectacular."

"But the guilt isn't theirs either," Castiel stresses. "None of it was chosen, _none_ of it."

"You think that matters? If they think they deserve to feel like crap, there's not a damn thing you can do to persuade them otherwise. Unless they agree to let you take it away, angel, this is beyond your control. And I don't think they're in much of a state to agree, are they?"

"How do you stop a human from feeling guilty?" Castiel says frustratedly, turning back to the afflicted pair.

"Castiel, _please_ ," the demon says. "You'd have better luck finding God." And then he smirks, such a deliberate and obvious acknowledgement of Castiel, of Castiel's failures, that he loses all control.

Some of the businessman's blood splatters Nick's face. He doesn't appear to notice.

"Mistake!" another demon chirrups. Castiel whirls to face it, to destroy it and anything else that dares to speak to him, dares to even _look_ upon him- but it remains hidden, lost in shadow. "Maybe it's time for you to see what these pretty little fighters are made of, hmm?"

"Stop," Castiel says, voice low and warning. "They've been through enough."

"Oh, my, no," the demon says admonishingly. "They're nowhere _near_ broken yet. We haven't even got _started_ on hallucinations."

Deep from within the stone walls comes chanting, almost inaudible. By the time Castiel has worked out what the voices are saying, translated a language he only knows from war cries and dying breaths, it's too late. Castiel doesn't have to work to feel it; the sudden dousing of Jimmy and Nick's souls is so obvious that it's impossible to miss.

Nick moves, suddenly coming to life, his eyes open and swimming with fury. He lunges for Jimmy and grabs him by the throat, thumbs pressing into the skin. Jimmy coughs but manages to kick him, hard, and Nick goes down.

"Jimmy, stop this!" Castiel shouts, trying to grab the other man. Jimmy pushes Castiel away with strength he never possessed on Earth and dives towards the table, snatching up a curved, two-ended blade with a sickening smile on his face. Castiel cloaks himself before Jimmy can turn around; he has no intentions of fighting his own vessel.

 _Let us out,_ the voices within him demand. _We can handle this, these pathetic sacks of gristle and hate. Let us fix, let us fight, let us_ taste-

No, he won't _._ Not yet.

There is another way, there has to be. Castiel reaches out with his mind and his grace and tries to make sense of the souls. He focuses on Jimmy's, the more familiar, and finds it swirling with pitch-black rage. The cloud twists with every movement Jimmy makes, causing every moral and belief and memory and value he has to be swept away, shifting from their place.

_Shifting._

The anger is brushing across the kernel of guilt lodged deep inside and whilst it's not moving it, it's dispelling some of its influence. Castiel thinks that maybe, just maybe, if he can break through the fury he can break through the psychosis too. It's a theory with no backing, but it's all he has.

So quickly Castiel can barely follow it, Nick swings the blade he's acquired and two of Jimmy's fingers are lost. He screams in agony and it tugs at something inside Castiel: a deep sadness, a desire to stop pain and make things better. Even with Castiel like he is- diluted, a few drops of himself suspended in a huge vat of _other-_ that need to help cannot be forgotten or overridden.

In their current location, though, Castiel is more vulnerable than either man. After all, he is no resident of Hell; there is nothing to prevent _him_ from dying. He has no choice but to stay back. He considers dampening Jimmy's pain but the man is barely feeling it; tries using his grace to hold Jimmy back from Nick, but finds Jimmy breaks through his shield with little effort.

It's then that he gets his first glimmer of hope. The swirling mist of fury thins over one area of Jimmy's soul, one memory, and for a second his eyes clear. Castiel feels the anxiety and desperation and shame and guilt and panic flood into him, and there's so _much_ of it that Jimmy is instantly overwhelmed, any hope of gaining control lost. Nick swings a fist against Jimmy's head and the rage swells, firmly back in place.

If Castiel were someone else, he would have to acknowledge the intelligence of the design. The demons found a potential escape route and got the men to block it off themselves.

Jimmy sends Nick flying across the room and he lands hard, leg twisting underneath him and a wet snapping noise echoing through the cavern. Jimmy grips the blade in his hand and goes to move forward when another area of soul clears and Castiel strikes.

The demonic essence has parted over one small section and Castiel pours his grace into it- strengthening the sides, reinforcing the space, struggling to keep it clear. Bit by bit, he pushes at the walls of the gap. As he does, the rage snags some of the guilt and drags it away. Soon, there is a patch of Jimmy's soul cleared of either guilt or anger; a patch that is just him, that is human. For now, that one patch is enough.

Jimmy stands unmoving, his eyes wide and shocked. "I.." he begins, fingers loosening and blade dropping from his hand. Nick lies a short distance away, left tibia completely shattered, and as cruel as it may seem Castiel is grateful. It buys them time.

"Jimmy," he says urgently, turning the man to face him. "Jimmy, listen to me."

"Castiel? I don't… what's happening?" he says, looking close to passing out. Castiel grips his shoulders tighter- and, almost as an afterthought, heals him again. Jimmy stares at the regrown fingers and opens his mouth to question something, but they don't have the time.

"Demons are controlling Nick and yourself," Castiel says. "You can fight it, but you need to stay focused."

"I don't-" Jimmy suddenly clutches at his head, emitting a low groan. Nick is trying to push himself up, managing to stand through grunts of pain but then falling back to the ground.

"Stay calm," Castiel orders, voice low. "Don't panic, don't fight, just breathe. Can you do that?"

"What do you _think_ I'm doing?" Jimmy says through gritted teeth. Now that it's been given a chance his soul is fighting back, millimetre by millimetre. The segment Castiel has cleared is strengthening, stiffening, taking over the job Castiel's grace has been performing. It is pushing the unwanted hatred away and keeping it out. Castiel tentatively loosens his control.

The anger stays out, but the guilt floods back in with utterly no resistance. Castiel pushes the emotion back as quickly has he can, but that's still too slow; Jimmy notices. The shield his soul has been building shudders and threatens to collapse.

"Stay calm," Castiel says again. "You need to remain calm, or you won't be able to keep them out."

Jimmy gasps for air but does as Castiel asks, and the area of soul around the gap rises like hackles. Castiel is still blocking off the guilt, but now Jimmy is managing to hold back the rage himself. It's still there and pressing hard on his mind, desperate to emerge, but it's contained. It's under his control. For now.

* * *

Sarah, Nick has always liked to joke, has a tendency towards paranoia.

She argues that it's not paranoia so much as good sense, and he supposes she's right. She likes to check that the door is locked and all the windows are closed before they go to sleep, hates driving at night due to one too many horror films beginning with a slumped body at the side of the road, a hitch-hiker with a knife up their sleeve.

Nick's more easy-going about things- that is, until it comes to their son. Sarah has to frequently remind him that the people stopping to coo in supermarkets probably don't require _quite_ the level of death-glare he sends their way.

"But she _touched_ him," Nick says unhappily after the most recent woman storms off, clearly affronted. "What was I supposed to do?"

"Smile!" Sarah laughs. "They think he's gorgeous. That's a compliment."

"That's a fact," Nick corrects, "and one she can observe without grabbing at his face."

"Grumpy," she says, kissing him.

'Grumpy' is steadily becoming an affectionate nickname for Nick. It makes an appearance when he says that Christmas is over-commercialised, when he complains that the price of everything in red or green has mysteriously quadrupled, and when he protests over going to church on Christmas Day.

"Do I _have_ to go?" he sulks.

"Not if you really don't want to," Sarah says. "But it'd make me happy if you did."

He has nothing in his arsenal capable of countering that, and so their little family of three heads off to church in the late morning. The ceremony's not bad, actually- it's too long and parts have Nick rolling his eyes, but it lights a warm glow in his stomach all the same.

"You enjoyed that," Sarah accuses when they leave.

"I did not," Nick says, shielding the baby in his arms from various elderly women desperate to rub his cheek or sniff his hair.

"You absolutely _did,_ " she says. "You look all wholesome and blissful. It's downright indecent."

"I'd swear viciously just to prove you wrong, but, you know. Innocent ears and all that," he says.

"Oh sure. _Sure,_ " she says, but her face softens when she looks at their sleeping son.

It's their first Christmas with him, and it's the kind of thing Nick didn't believe actually existed. There are presents under the tree, a lovingly cooked meal, friends coming over for drinks ('we're having Coke, Cohen, suck it up and deal'), a baby giggling in delight at new toys, a dog lying in front of the fire like all is content in its world. Ridiculously, it even snows- just a little, but it's there.

"Imagine this time next year," Sarah says, from where she's curled against Nick's chest on the sofa. Her family and Britt have gone home, their son is asleep, and Banjo hasn't even bothered waking up. "He'll be walking."

"I bet he'll be into everything," Nick muses. "He should be talking too. Not much, but some."

"And the year after that," Sarah breathes. "He'll be two and a half. That's ridiculous."

"Then three…"

"Then four…"

"Then he'll be at _school._ We're going to have a child, at school. I'm going to have to go to parent-teacher conferences."

"Should I join the PTA?"

"Would they let you?"

"Hey!" she scolds, smacking him with a cushion. "I can make brownies. That's enough, right?"

"Should be," he agrees, pulling her back towards him. "There's so much to come," he murmurs into her hair. "I'm so glad I'm here for it."

"You're not regretting it?" she says. It's not a real question because they both know the answer, but they both want to hear it from his lips.

"No way," he breathes. "No friggin' way."

They stay like that for a while longer, entwined on the sofa and watching flakes of snow drift down outside.

"Did you lock the door?" she asks after a few minutes. He groans.

"The moment, Sarah, you are spoiling the moment." He gets up and does it anyway.

"Thanks," she says quietly as he takes up his place beside her again.

"No problem," he says, because it's not. It makes her happy and keeps her safe and, in the end, that's all that really matters.

* * *

Jimmy thinks he lost himself somewhere along the line, but he's not clear on the details. He doesn't know how much time passed between when everything fragmented and blurred and when he looked up to find himself- no, _Castiel_ \- standing nearby, but he thinks it might have been a while.

There are twin presences lurking in his skull, trying to reach him. One must be the anger that he knows the demons use for pollution, but he doesn't know what the other is. Something is holding both forces back. He can tell straight away that it's Castiel; that characteristic vibration of angelic interference isn't a sensation Jimmy could misplace. It's also not one that he's missed.

Jimmy doesn't know what he's doing, but he must be doing it okay, because he feels Castiel's presence in his head begin to lessen. But then something else slips into his mind and suddenly his entire being is caught in frenzy, in a desperate struggle that only propels his thoughts in circles. His head is pounding out a relentless clamour _what have I done need to make it right need to-,_ and he can't hold the anger out, he can't concentrate enough, he-

"Stay calm," Castiel says sharply as Jimmy's hysteria is suddenly tugged away. "You need to remain calm, or you won't be able to keep them out."

He can still feel that overwhelming panic, hovering on the edge of his mind, but for now it's leaving him alone. Okay, so _that's_ what else is up there. Okay. Calm. Just gotta stay calm. Jimmy breathes solidly, steadily, and focuses.

"Castiel, what's going on?" he asks, voice measured. He swore a long time ago to never again trust an angel, but he's not exactly tripping over other options here.

"The demons have been affecting your emotions," Castiel tells him. "Your guilt, specifically."

"My guilt?" he asks, not understanding. "Why?"

"To stop you from fighting off their influence, as another form of punishment, and to drive you insane," Castiel says impatiently. "You need to allow me to undo their alterations before we leave this place."

"Can't it wait until we're back on Earth?" Jimmy asks weakly. His head is spinning with the information he's struggling to take in, and it's so very difficult to stay in control, and he just wants _out_. As quickly as possible.

"An emotion rooted in free will to this level is difficult to alter even slightly. There is no way I could simultaneously hold back both forces for the two of you _and_ fight our way out. If you allow me to remove the guilt, you will be able to control your own fury long enough for us to escape."

"Wait, remove my guilt? You want to turn me into a psychopath?" That sounds like losing his conscience, and there's no way Jimmy could agree to that.

"No, it won't be like that."

"Are you-"

"Jimmy, we don't have time," Castiel cuts him off. Nick is advancing towards them despite the ugly jut of broken bone protruding from his leg, blood dragging his hair to stick to his face. Jimmy closes his eyes.

It's like being in the eye of a storm, on the straight track of a roller-coaster when you know another drop is coming. The incredible force of the anger waiting to take him over is so very nearly unbearable, and it's taking everything he has to hold it back.

"Do it," he tells Castiel.

The angel wastes no time. One second Jimmy is as fine as he can be, and the next every inch of him is raked with scorching pain, like being ripped to pieces by red hot wires. Within his mind he feels something grab hold and wrench, and he can't help but scream.

"I'm sorry," he hears Castiel say, but it's so very far away, and everything is pain and pressure and pulling and he can't stay calm, he can't, he _can't_ -

He's a heartbeat away from letting go when the pain slides away and the pressure clears. Jimmy lets out a shaky breath, long and slow. He feels… different. Cleaner, somehow. He feels more like himself than he has in a very long time, better in ways where he didn't even realise he was bad.

Nick is nearly on them but Castiel throws him back, causing his leg to twist under him again with an agonised cry. Jimmy's brow furrows in concern, but Castiel is already turning back to face him.

"I've removed the source of the guilt, but you're still vulnerable to the anger," Castiel warns. "You have to hold on, Jimmy. You cannot let go. If you do, it may be very difficult to get you back again."

"Okay, okay," Jimmy breathes. That's not exactly helping with the whole 'calm' thing. "And Nick? What about him?"

"I cannot penetrate his mind," Castiel says, with some regret. "The moments of lucidity are too fleeting. You need to pull him back the present before I can help."

"Me?" Jimmy says. "How the hell am I supposed to do that?"

"Find a way to reach him. What does he care about?"

"He didn't exactly talk much," he snaps. The hysteria may be gone but there are still hands in his mind desperate to pull him back under, a demon's fury desperately bashing at the walls as hard as they can.

"Then _think_ ," Castiel shoots back. "Either you get him to focus and I offer him the same thing I offered you, or you allow him to attack you and get pulled back under."

Jimmy wants to argue, but Nick's coming towards him again and he has to evaluate what matters more. He swallows hard- _calm, calm, stay calm-_ and turns to face the man with the knife in his hand.


	8. Chapter 8

In the sixth picture, Claire is dressed in pink; the seventh, in purple. By the eighth she's broken free from monochromaticity and shot up two inches. By the time you get to picture eleven, age ten, Claire is the spitting image of Amelia. It doesn't matter that they never did conceive a sibling for Claire, or that money's not always great, or that Amelia has more lines around her eyes and Jimmy's a little heavier these days: their smiles are as bright on page eleven as they are on page one.

There are other pictures too, in other albums- Claire as an angel in a school play, the three of them relaxing on a beach, attending a fundraiser for the homeless at their church, a handful of Christmases, a scattering of birthday parties, all in neat chronological order with carefully written labels and lovingly recorded dates.

"How was school today, honey?" Jimmy asks at dinner one day, after they've said grace.

"Good," Claire says, pausing to swallow her pasta when Amelia gives her a gentle yet firm look. "We were writing about what our parents do for jobs."

"Yeah?" Jimmy says. "Was it interesting?"

"Not really," she says, pulling a face. "Your job is boring."

"Tell me about it, sweetie," he says while Amelia tries to choke back laughter. They move the conversation on and he tries his best to forget about it. But later that night, lying by Amelia's side, he can't help himself.

"So apparently my job is boring," he says, trying to make it sound light-hearted. Amelia groans.

"I knew you'd bring that up," she says, nestling closer to him. "Don't take it personally, Jimmy, she's only a kid. She thinks my job's boring too."

"I don't know, Ames," he says, staring up at the ceiling. "Sometimes I think that there _has_ to be something more, y'know? I mean, selling crap over the phone? Is that really all I'm good for?"

"Honey, you know it's not," she soothes. She sounds concerned. "I didn't know it was making you so unhappy. Is it really that bad?"

"No, it's not that. It's more… are you really happy being with someone like that? Like me?"

There are a few moments of silence.

"Oh, Jimmy," she whispers. "Come here. Come on, look at me."

Grudgingly, he does so. In the darkness of their room, she gently touches a hand to the stubble on his face, looks into his eyes.

"I don't want you for anything other than what you are," she says slowly, making sure he hears every word. "I love you for you, whether you're a salesman or an astronaut. You're still Jimmy. I still love you."

"I love you too," he tells her quietly.

The worry fades away, but it doesn't disappear. It lies dormant in the back of his mind, a constant tickle of ' _there's something else, there's something more'._

* * *

"Nick?" Jimmy says carefully. "Nick, can you hear me?"

Nick snarls and his grip on the blade tightens. Castiel raises a hand and when Nick tries to advance further, he finds that he can't. He slams against the wall of nothingness angrily, over and over again.

"That's all I can do," Castiel says unhappily. He's been pushing his powers to the limit, and somehow Jimmy doesn't think that their current environment is the best place for an angel of the Lord to recharge. He vows to try and act quickly.

"Nick," Jimmy says again. "Come on, listen to me. This isn't you. You know that."

Nothing. Jimmy keeps on trying.

"It's the demons, Nick. I know they're making you- I know it's- listen, I know, okay? But you can get past it, I swear- Castiel can help you if you let-"

Nick throws himself at the wall again and physically falls backwards from how hard he slams into it. When his eyes find Jimmy, they're vicious and hungry. Jimmy's still focusing on holding back his own rage, and right now it's pounding. All he can think is that it's not fair, that none of this is fair.

There's blood gushing from Nick's wounds, a bright, arterial red, and Jimmy never asked for this, never wanted this- _no, stop it, stay focused._ He only ever wanted to help, thought saying 'yes' to Castiel was the right thing, thought it was the best thing that could ever happen to him- _focus! Think about something else._

_Think about Amelia. Think about Claire._

Amelia. Claire. What had Nick said?

_… the skin of my dead wife…_

Claire, Amelia, breathe. What had Nick said?

_… the ghost of my dead son…._

"Nick," Jimmy calls again, stronger this time. "Nick, what was your wife called?"

Jimmy gets no reaction, but he doesn't give up. If anything works, it will be this; it _has_ to be this.

"You had a wife, Nick," Jimmy says. "You told me about her. About your wife and your son."

Nick attacks with more force than ever, Castiel wincing slightly with the effort of keeping the wall in place.

"You had a wife, Nick, think about your wife. Think about her name. What was her name?"

The words don't have any effect.

"He's not hearing me," Jimmy says, frustrated. The anger in his own head pounds, and he exhales slowly. _Calm._ "Any ideas?" he calls, darting his eyes to look at Castiel.

"I could push back his emotions as a whole," Castiel says hesitantly. "Dampen his soul. The effect will be meagre, but it may increase your chance of breaking through to him."

"Okay, so let's do that!"

"I'm not… I can't keep the wall up and attempt it simultaneously."

"Okay, so drop the wall," Jimmy says.

"Are you sure?"

 _No, not even slightly._ But whilst Castiel's taken out the guilt that Hell bred and built up, he's left Jimmy's own emotions intact. This isn't Jimmy's fault- none of it is- but he still wants to help. After all, this isn't Nick's fault either.

"Yes," Jimmy says. Castiel grunts in frustration. Jimmy knows the angel well enough to understand how much this must be hurting him, not being able to do more.

"Good luck," he says, and then Nick is moving through the air, blade swinging for Jimmy's face.

* * *

"I'll see you on Thursday," he tells her. She kisses him, arms sliding around his neck.

"I'll miss you," Sarah murmurs.

"I'll miss you too."

"Goodbye, little man," he tells his son. "You're in charge for a few days. Don't forget that I love you."

***

Business trips are rarely interesting, and this is no exception. Stupid team-building exercises, crappy early-morning starts for yoga or the gym, boring-ass meetings: a plethora of things Nick don't care about, all of which seem to exist purely to prevent him from being with his family.

"Only two days now," he tells Sarah down the phone.

"The bed's cold without you," she complains.

"Mine's colder," he complains right back. "You've got Banjo. I'm all alone."

"So just imagine that I'm there with you."

"… you know, that's not really conductive to sleeping."

***

"The burglar alarm's on the fritz," Sarah tells him during his lunch-break phone call.

"Are you freaking out?" he asks, walking through the park. It's a nice day. The sun is out.

"No," she objects hotly. She pauses. "Okay, maybe a little."

He chuckles to himself. "Ask Britt to fix it."

"I did. She can't."

"Seriously?" he says. "Must be bad, then. I'll have a look when I get home."

"Thanks," she says, with more relief than she probably intended to show. He stops walking.

"I promise you, Sarah, you'll be fine until then," he says softly. "Nothing bad's going to happen. Okay?"

"Okay," she says reluctantly. "I guess it's not long now."

"Thirty-five hours," he says immediately. "… not that I'm counting or anything."

"Of course not," she says. Even down the crappy line, he can hear the smile in her voice.

***

"He misses you," Sarah tells Nick later that day.

Nick makes her hold the phone up to the crib so he can say goodnight to his son from the other side of the state.

***

The next day, once his afternoon meeting ends, he phones Sarah up to check on Banjo.

"I've dropped him off at the vets, but the operation isn't for a few hours yet," Sarah says.

"Was he okay?"

"Isn't he always? They're calling him the most placid dog of all time."

"Do you think he knows why he's there?"

"I hope not. I don't think he'd ever forgive me."

"They're going to cut his balls off, Sarah," Nick points out. "I'm not sure I'd forgive you."

"Damn, because I went ahead and booked you in for next week."

"You're so funny."

"I know, right? They're keeping him overnight to make sure everything's okay, but we can go pick him up tomorrow morning."

"Good," Nick says. "Listen, I gotta go, but I'll see you this evening."

"Eight hours, right?"

"That's right, babe."

"Though obviously, it's not like I'm counting or anything."

"Obviously."

***

The drive home is going to be long and unexciting, and the sky is making vague threats.

"I'm just setting off now," he tells Sarah when he gets in the car.

"I might be in bed when you get back," she says apologetically.

"I should think so too," he says. It'll be midnight when he gets in, if not later, and their son's going through the 'sleep? who needs sleep?' phase.

"How's The Awaketron 9000 doing?" he asks.

"Good. Noisy, but good."

"Tell him I love him."

"I will," Sarah says. "He loves you too. As do I. Promise you'll wake me up when you get in?"

"I think you seriously overestimate how light-footed I'm capable of being."

She laughs. "Good point. Have you got your key?"

"Of course," he grins. "We couldn't risk leaving it under a flowerpot, now could we?"

"Oh, shut up," she mutters. "Hurry back, okay, asshole?"

"Of course. Love you, babe."

"I love you more."

"Not possible. See you soon," he says softly, and hangs up. The rain beats down on his windscreen as he turns the key, glancing at the clock like he can force the car to get there faster through desire alone.

***

Nick pulls into the driveway at a few minutes past twelve, sky ink-black and still spitting with rain. He hums to himself as he switches the engine off, fumbling around for the house key. There's a spring in his step despite the late hour and long drive as he walks up the path, every move he makes teeming with excitement. His wife, his son, his house, his _life_. It's good to be back.

The downstairs lights aren't on, so Sarah must have gone to bed after all. No problem; after all, he has his key. But as he slides it into the lock, something icier than rain creeps down his neck. Slowly, without having turned the key, he pushes down the handle and watches the door swing open.

The rain beats down and down and down. When he steps inside and calls Sarah's name, there is only the silence to answer.

* * *

Jimmy barely manages to dodge the swing. He catches Nick's wrist and twists, but Nick keeps his grip on the knife's handle.

"You had a wife, Nick," Jimmy says quickly as Nick struggles. "You told me you had a wife. Think about her. Remember her."

Nick's pauses, falters. "I-" he begins, and Jimmy jumps on it.

"Come on, what was her name? Tell me."

"S…" Despite Castiel's help, Nick is visibly struggling. The guilt is dragging him down, his demons calling him away and everything he has is trying to yank him back inside himself.

"Hey, come on, Nick, focus," Jimmy says. "Don't think about anything else, just think about her. What was she called?"

"S…" Nick mumbles something that sounds like 'sorry'.

"No, don't do that, not now. What was her name?"

He says the word again, a little louder this time and Jimmy realises that it's not an apology, it's a name. He still can't quite make it out. Jimmy closes his fingers around the handle of Nick's blade, and this time Nick lets him take it.

"Good," Castiel says quietly. "Keep going."

"Again?" Jimmy presses. "Her name, Nick."

"Sarah," Nick finally gets out. His eyes are flickering from dancing with fire to empty and deadened, but every now and again they're just… eyes. Just Nick.

"Sarah?" Jimmy encourages. "How old was Sarah? When you met? She was younger than you, I'm guessing?"

"T… twenty-two," Nick says. He's leaning heavily on his uninjured leg, rage no longer able to mask the pain. He whimpers. "My head-"

"Don't think about it," Jimmy says. "Just keep thinking of them. Just keep thinking of Sarah and… your son? What was your son's name?"

"My son," Nick says vacantly. Every now and again he jerks in place, like he's having to physically stop himself lunging for the knife.

"You and Sarah had a son," Jimmy says.

"He's nearly stable," Castiel states. "If you can bring him further back, clear a little more, I'll be able to take over as I did with you."

"You told me you had a son," Jimmy says. "What was his name?"

"I can't…" Nick says desperately, breath coming in juddering gasps. "It hurts."

"I know, I know," Jimmy says. "You can fight it."

"Too… strong…"

"No, it's _not_ ," Jimmy says firmly. "You need to focus. Nick, if you loved your family, if you loved them at all, you'll do this for them. Think of your son, Nick. What was his name?"

And Nick- Nick, who's been near catatonic, who was screaming for death long before he entered Hell, who didn't know he had emotions left to feel, who swallowed Lucifer whole to see if together they could make God pay, who's grown soundless and stagnant and spiritless and stiff- begins to cry.

"Adam," he whispers as a single hot tear carves its way through the gummy blood on his face. "His name was Adam."

* * *

It's late, and Jimmy really should be in bed. In fact, he's already dozing off in the chair, sleep tugging at him impatiently. He's vaguely aware of the television chattering away in the background, the show he had intended to watch playing out without him.

"My eyes were closed, my head was turned to the right side, and on each side of me is an angel," the man on the screen is saying.

Suddenly, the TV switches to angry static. Jimmy jerks awake. "What the heck?" he says.

He should really go to bed and leave it until morning, but something won't let him. It could be curiosity, it could be pride- or it could be that he'd have to face Amelia and tell her that he broke something, that he couldn't fix something, that he wasn't good enough to do something. And maybe, just maybe, that idea bothers him a little.

All around Jimmy people are happily climbing their respective career ladders, watching their salary skip its way up the scale, wearing suits and talking on mobiles and making their mark on the world. They've all got a purpose, a calling, and Jimmy's an average guy with an average job and an average wage. Amelia says that's okay, but Amelia's _not_ average. She deserves better- she deserves more. It can only be a matter of time before she realises that.

… maybe it bothers him a lot.

Whatever the reason is, he gets up and goes to fix the television. It doesn't work- as he fiddles with the back, blearily-eyed, the static only gets worse. Soon, it starts to hurt his ears. He winces and lets go, but it still doesn't stop. It keeps on getting louder and higher and louder and higher, and he thinks he can hear something _in_ it- thinks he can imagine words, and though it hurts so very badly, he can't help but strain to hear who's speaking.

 _You're special, Jimmy,_ a voice is murmuring, a voice like nothing he's heard on Earth, like thunder and rain and laughter and screaming and a cave of crystals shattering, one by one by one. _I need your help. You're the only one I can ask._

And his limbs start to stiffen and his eyes roll back in his head, but when Jimmy's body starts to seize he's not paying any attention. Everything he has is devoted to listening, entire being hanging on the words rolling from his television.

* * *

It feels like waking up from the deepest sleep he's ever known.

Nick is groggy, and disoriented, and confused. Jimmy persuaded him to let Castiel do something- to 'fix' him, they'd said- and Nick had said 'yes' without really knowing what he was agreeing to. Now, he feels… present. He doesn't know what's going on, doesn't know where he is- but he knows he _is_. It's… a change. That's all he can say.

In his head, something is whickering for his attention.

"There," Castiel says, stepping back and dropping his hand. The excruciating pain that had wracked every atom of his body is gone. Castiel must have healed his leg at the same time, because Nick finds he can stand. "The guilt has been removed from both of you, but there may be… after-effects. I removed the source but I could not remove every trace of its influence. And, of course, what occurred naturally will still be present."

"Thanks," Nick says quietly. Castiel's hurried explanations are ringing in his ears, but his attention is being dragged away by something else, throwing itself against the sides of his skull. _Anger,_ he recognises faintly, looking down to the river of blood on the floor. _It's anger._

"Stay focused," Castiel had said. "Stay awake, stay here. Don't let yourself slip away, or it could regain control."

It would be so easy to give in.

Nick looks to the vast display of weapons in front of them and a shudder passes down his spine. He pinches the skin of his wrist, the small twinge of pain keeping him centred. It would be so, so easy, but _no_. He owes Jimmy and Castiel that much, at least.

"So, um- what happens now?" Jimmy asks. There are two copies of the same person stood in front of Nick, as if everything else wasn't confusing enough. Castiel holds himself differently, has a different look to his face, but it's disconcerting all the same.

"We- shield your eyes!" Castiel shouts suddenly. Before Nick can question anything, Castiel is slamming his hands forwards, and Nick only just hits the ground in time. The white brightness is painful even with his closed eyes pressed into his hands, hands hard against the rocky floor. He hears screams around him, from twenty, fifty sources, maybe more.

 _Demons,_ his memory provides. _He's destroying demons._

"We don't have much time," Castiel says the instant the light clears. "More will be here soon. You both need to hold onto me. Do _not_ let go."

"What's happening?" Nick asks. Castiel plants a firm hand on his shoulder and, on his other side, does the same to Jimmy.

"We're getting out," Castiel says grimly, and closes his eyes. The ceiling explodes, blown away by a huge blast of light and sound, and then they are rising through the shower of rubble and sparks and shadows, rising up through the bitter rain and leaving the blood on the floor behind them.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter starts with a flashback and then moves onto the present day. I hope it's still easy-ish to follow!

If life goes on without Sarah and Adam, Nick doesn't notice.

At first, he works on autopilot. He fills in reports, answers questions, tells the police everything he knows. Britt begs him to stay with her for a few days, but he refuses. Sandra sees the story on the news, calls him to do the same thing and gets the same reply.

He picks the dog up, pays the fees and shuts the nursery door without looking inside. He goes upstairs at ten to eight, nothing better to do than to sleep, and finds a small, dark brown patch by the bed; blood they couldn't get out. He sleeps on the living room floor.

He shops, he cooks, he even goes to work. He turns down the offered counselling sessions. When his phone rings his answers come with short, clipped formality. A month passes.

After he quits his job, he turns down invitations from his co-workers to go out for a drink. Instead, late at night, he goes to the bar alone. He is silent as the bartender pours the Coke, stays silent as she adds the vodka, swallows and wonders the sensation would have burned once. His phone rings. He lets it. Another month passes.

He goes to the bar every day until he starts getting concerned questions, delivered with gentle eyes and a cautious touch to the shoulder. He starts to buy his alcohol online and quits bothering to mix it with anything. His phone rings. He disconnects it. On what would have been their son's first birthday, he starts drinking and doesn't stop.

Nick wakes up an unspecified period of time later, thin carpet scratching against his unshaven chin. He blinks, the light too bright, sounds too loud. He reaches blindly for the bottle by his head, the same way he has every time he's been kicked back into consciousness, but it's empty. Looks like it's time to wake up for real, then.

Nick pushes himself up and the world sways, tilting dangerously and threatening to throw him off. He retches but manages not to throw up, clinging onto the sofa and forcing himself to kneel. Slowly, oh-so-slowly, he puts both of his feet on the ground and straightens up. Everything goes black at first, but then the darkness grudgingly clears.

Aspirin. He needs aspirin. And water, actually- he can't remember the last time he drunk something without a proof written on the label. That being said, he's not sure he remembers the last time he… anything. What day is it? He doesn't know, but it doesn't matter. As long as it's not _that_ day anymore, as long as he doesn't have to open birthday cards sent by estranged family members who somehow fucking _missed_ it all, it doesn't matter.

He makes his way through to the kitchen, still unsteady on his feet, when he sees something that stops him dead. It takes him a good few seconds to realise _why_ it feels like something heavy has dropped into his stomach, why he's staring, why he's so affected by a simple dog's lead.

_Banjo._

He had put Banjo out back on Adam's birthday. Banjo's much bigger than he used to be, but he still just about fits in his old crate. It was only supposed to be for a couple of minutes, enough time for Nick to clear away the broken glass from a bottle he had dropped, but somehow he'd gotten side-lined and ended up opening a fresh one instead and-

 _How long has it been?_ His hands scrabble until he finds his phone and he mashes the 'on' button with a clumsy thumb. He looks at the date, looks at it and looks at it, but it still makes no sense.

It's Thursday. Adam's birthday had been on Monday.

"Banjo," he calls, the word thick and unwilling to slide from his tongue as he staggers through the house. He yanks at the door but it's locked and he can't find the key, and why did he even fucking lock it? It's not like it matters, not anymore-

Nick slams his shoulder into the door. His world swims with black again, but he keeps on going all the same until the wood creaks outs its defeat and busts open.

"Banjo," he calls again, but as he enters he's hit by a revolting stench. He can't hold back the vomit this time, a stream of pure liquid that splatters the walls. He finds that his legs can't keep him up anymore. Rather than waste time trying to stand, Nick drags himself forward on his hands and knees.

"Banjo," he says weakly, his surroundings nothing but one long, smeared blur as he crawls towards the crate. "Banjo, it's me. I'm here, it's me."

He makes it to the crate door and reaches for the catch. He tries to open it, but it's too intricate for his fingers, for the useless meat on his knuckles that won't obey his orders. He never even gave the dog food or any water, didn't think he'd be in there long enough to need it, didn't _think-_

"Hang in there, man, please," he pleads. He keeps on trying to open the crate, desperately pushing at the bolt, but it's not working _._ He can't even do this one thing, can't even open a fucking _door_.

"I'm so sorry, Banjo," he whispers, tears sliding down his face as the door finally falls blessedly open. "I'm so, so fucking sorry."

And Banjo- his dog, his starving, dehydrated dog, who Nick left rotting in his own waste- still looks at him like he's all that's right with the world, still thuds his tail like he wishes he could do more, still leans forward to lick Nick's hand, ever so gently, like he's sorry, like he's sorry.

* * *

"Are we out?" Jimmy asks unsteadily.

They're standing in a long white hall, stretching out of Nick's view on both sides. Nick can't say for certain how they escaped; they had moved too quickly. All he had been aware of was rushing air and heat and a grip on his shoulder, so tight it burned the flesh.

"Not yet," Castiel replies. Nick thinks he sounds tired, _looks_ tired, pale and starting to tremble. "This space lies between Hell and Earth- it's a half-way point, of sorts."

"Okay," Jimmy says. "So what now?"

"You will be restored to Earth," Castiel says to Nick.

Nick's blood turns to ice. He's been broken and burned and undone and put back together in the wrong order, re-designed by someone clumsily jamming puzzle pieces together, and yet he still can't think of a single punishment worse than being a vessel. _Not again, please, Castiel,_ please _not again…_

"Lucifer-" he begins.

"- is no longer a concern," Castiel finishes. "The issue was addressed. He is back in the Cage with no way of escape."

It's such a huge relief that Nick almost wants to laugh, feels feverish joy bubbling up in his chest, because Lucifer's _gone_. He's no longer Nick's worry, no longer his responsibility. It's almost enough to make him look forward to returning to Earth.

Almost.

"My body…" Nick says uncertainly.

"Will be restored to as it was before your possession," Castiel says. "You will notice no significant change."

"Thanks," Nick says. Castiel nods curtly, and they stand and look at each other. Castiel is the very kind of creature that locked talons around Nick and breathed chaos down his throat- but at the same time, he isn't. Nick can picture Castiel surrounded by white clouds and azure sky; Nick's angel crawled out of a drain and came whispering into his dreams.

"And me?" Jimmy asks. "I mean, I gotta tell you, I can't wait to see Amelia again. And oh, _Claire._ Oh, my baby girl. I've missed her so, so much _._ " He chuckles under his breath, shaking his head. "I bet she's gotten so…" Jimmy trails off. Castiel is looking at Jimmy, just standing and looking.

"I am sorry, Jimmy," he says softly.

"Sorry? Sorry for what?" Jimmy laughs uncertainly. "Castiel?"

"I still need a vessel," Castiel says- with nowhere near enough emotion, Nick thinks, nowhere near enough regret. "I still need use of your body."

"Oh," Jimmy says, but then forces a smile back onto his face. "Never mind. Someday, right? You always said, someday you'd be done and I could take over again. That's okay. I can wait a while longer."

"Things have changed," Castiel says, shaking his head. "Events have unfolded that are too complex to explain."

"Try us," Nick says through gritted teeth. The angel shoots a glare his way that's probably supposed to make him cower away in fear, but after everything, after his family and Lucifer's persuasion and Lucifer's possession and Hell on his own and Hell with Jimmy and Hell taking his mind away from his fumbling grasp, Nick does _absolutely_ not scare that easily.

Castiel concedes. "To put a very long story into relatively few words, I am… no longer the only entity making use of this vessel."

"I'm sure as hell not in there anymore," Jimmy says in disbelief.

"No. But others are," Castiel says.

"Which others?" Nick asks. Castiel doesn't answer.

"So you've been loading my body up with what, exactly?" Jimmy says incredulously. "And you never thought I might not be okay with that? Dammit, Castiel, when I said yes, it wasn't to this!"

"You don't understand," Castiel snarls, suddenly angry. "It was the only way!"

"Whatever it was-"

"Perhaps you ought to consider that I have broken you both from Hell and I have done so single-handedly," Castiel cuts in. "I fought my way in, I fixed your minds, I fought our way _out,_ and there is no way I could have done that in any other circumstance. You ought to be grateful."

Nick wants to point out that he doesn't remember ever asking to be saved _._

"You're different," Jimmy says in what might very well be disgust. "I don't know what it is, but… whatever you've done, Castiel, you know it's not right. Don't you?"

" _No_. Things are betterthis way,for everybody. Why can none of you see that?"

Nick gets the impression, for some reason, that Castiel isn't just talking about him and Jimmy. He seems stressed, stretched to breaking point. Out of the three people in the hallway, Jimmy and Nick currently hold the most in control over themselves. Nick wonders if he's going to wake up in a minute; if he finally, finally managed to get to sleep.

Jimmy goes to say something but it comes out as a strangled gasp of horror as something physically bulges out from Castiel's chest, a lump like a fist trying to unzip his torso from the inside.

"No," Castiel growls in a voice of broken glass and boiling magma, and Nick's certain the word isn't meant for either of them. " _No._ " There's a hissing coming from Castiel even when he isn't speaking, words that Nick can't quite hear but that make his hair stand up on end. The hissing ebbs and then stops completely, a switch flicked off. The lump melts back into Castiel's flesh like it was never there and his shoulders slump as the tension floods from his muscles.

"What did you do to me?" Jimmy whispers. Castiel keeps his head down but raises his eyes to meet Jimmy's with a look that could be regret, that could be frustration, that could be many things. On his cheek there is a steadily spreading patch of raw, flayed-looking flesh.

"It would be… unwise for you to be placed back in this body," Castiel says softly. "You would be torn apart in moments." The _like me_ hangs in their minds rather than in the air.

"If you tried to take another vessel, would the same thing would happen to them?" Jimmy says. There's a tinge of resignation in his voice that Nick does not like the sound of.

"Yes," Castiel confirms.

"Then take a coma patient," Nick says through gritted teeth. "Find some poor, brain-dead bastard and give Jimmy his body back. Nobody has to get hurt."

"There is no way the transfer could be made clean enough," Castiel says. He stands straighter now, finding solace in certainties. "The best case scenario would be an equal split between the two vessels, and even then Jimmy's body would remain far too hostile for his soul to survive. The _worst_ case would be both vessels splitting openand letting everything inside spill out. You need to believe me when I say that we cannot risk that happening."

"Besides," Castiel says, like he's picking up a point he can't believe he forgot until now. "I still need the power. I still have things to fix."

"Like?"

"Everything," Castiel breathes, a kind of rapture in his eyes. "Heaven and Earth and everywhere else that requires a God."

Nick thinks that Castiel has probably gone insane- if he is, in fact, still there at all. Nick didn't know much about the angel, but he never would have pictured Castiel stooping so low.

"So what happens to me now?" Jimmy asks.

"You will be moved on to Heaven," Castiel answers.

"What?" Nick barks, his eyes flickering between Jimmy and Castiel. "No!"

"I will ensure it this time," Castiel says. "I will make the transfer myself. You will be happy there, Jimmy."

"My family…" Jimmy says. "Castiel, I need to see my family."

"I'm sorry," Castiel repeats, his words from earlier given context, given meaning. He seems to mean it, and isn't that just the worst part of this whole thing? 'Sorry' is bullshit, Nick thinks. It's too late for 'sorry'- in fact, no, it's too _early_ for sorry.

Jimmy hasn't fucked it all up like Nick did. He's still got a wife and he's still got a kid and he's still got so many chances, and Castiel wants to take them away; replace them with 'sorry' and a promise of paradise.

"Couldn't _I_ take a vessel?" Jimmy asks desperately. "Like Nick said, a coma patient or something? Just for a while."

"Humans are incapable of possession," Castiel says. Jimmy nods dully, like he'd already guessed that much. He runs a hand through his hair, turning away from them, and then turns back to face Castiel.

"Okay," he says quietly.

"No!" Nick objects immediately. "Not fucking 'okay', Jimmy! Castiel, there has to be something. Don't you tell me there's not, don't you _dare_. You can still take another vessel."

"I already told you, there is no way a person could-"

"Take me!" Nick says, holding his arms out.

"Nick, don't," Jimmy says, his voice low and urgent. "Please." Jimmy knows, better than anybody else, what being a vessel is like. He knows what Nick is volunteering to do, the sacrifice he's asking to make. Maybe he thinks- _hopes_ \- that Nick is kidding.

Nick is not.

"Come on! I put up _Lucifer_!" Nick says, laughing wildly as he holds his arms out. "I can take whatever it is Castiel's got boiling in there."

"Can you now?" Castiel says to Nick, seemingly angered by the idea. "There are things more ancient than angels, boy, things Lucifer himself would fear. You wouldn't stand a chance."

"I would if you'd give me one," Nick shoots back. "And even if I don't, so what?"

"Nick, stop it!" Jimmy says. "I mean it."

"So do I. What have I got, Jimmy?" he says. "What the fuck is there left for me? My wife is dead, my son is dead- you really think I want to go back, Castiel? I don't want to go back!"

"I told you, the transfer isn't feasible."

"You could _try_."

"No."

"But-"

"The answer is no, Nick."

Nick wants to curse, or scream, or cry. He digs his nails into his palms and tries not to look at anyone, tries to pretend his eyes aren't prickling with hot and angry tears.

"Nick, it's okay," Jimmy says. "It's okay, I promise."

No, it's not okay, and it's sure as hell not fair. Nick's spoken to Jimmy, likes to think they understand a bit about each other, and he knows that Jimmy doesn't deserve this. Jimmy did everything he was supposed to- when Nick was drinking and fucking and trying to beat every other self-loathing asshole around him to the grave, Jimmy was going to church and doing charity work and raising his , Nick pulled it together eventually, but then he went and lost it all. Nick hasn't wanted to be alive since he put that key in his front door and didn't have to turn it.

Castiel faces Jimmy and places a hand on his arm.

"I guess I might see you around," Jimmy says to the angel with a flat kind of humour.

"You will," Castiel says solemnly. Jimmy nods and turns his head to look at Nick.

"It was good knowing you, Nick," he says. "Take care of yourself, yeah?"

"I'm sorry," he says hoarsely, in a voice that cracks and tremors. Jimmy smiles, a little bitterly.

"I wish, just for once, you'd believe someone when they tell you you've got no reason to be."

And then there's light, not as powerful as before but still bright enough to force Nick's eyelids closed, and when it fades there are only people left standing in the hallway.

Castiel is facing away from Nick, and when Nick sees the slump of his shoulders and the way he pushes a rough hand over his face, resting his forehead against it for a moment, he amends his earlier judgement. Castiel is not altogether lost, not yet.

"You take care of his family, okay?" Nick says when Castiel eventually turns to face him. His eyes are rimmed with red.

"I will," Castiel says.

"You ever have a family?" Nick says on a random whim. Castiel's eyes cloud; his upper lip quivers slightly.

"I believe I had something like one," he says quietly.

"Maybe it's time you got back to them."

Silence. When Castiel speaks again his voice is firm and emotion free.

"Goodbye, Nick."

"Fair play," Nick breathes, and he closes his eyes.

When he opens them it's with a gasp like the final breath of a drowning man, like the first cry of his son, like being born and dying all at once. The floor is icy against his unbroken, blemish-free skin, and he can hear faint music coming from somewhere far, far away. Nick lies on a hard, cold floor in a place he doesn't know and, at a loss for what else to do, begins to pray.

And so it happens that, at around 2AM on a quiet and cold Sunday morning, the vessel of Heaven is lifted to Heaven and the vessel of Hell is restored to Earth. And a week or so later, an angel (in a body whose owner has withdrawn all claim to the bones) wakes up dazed, in a blood-soaked office. He recalls phrases-

_Whatever you've done, Castiel, you know it's not right._

_You ever have a family?_

_Maybe it's time you got back to them._

\- and when he hears Sam's call he doesn't have to think twice about heeding it, about going back home.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: And this is the final chapter! As with before, '***' represents the progression of time within a certain period, rather than flipping between a flashback and present day.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, guys. I appreciate it more than I could ever say.

When James Novak was five, he had wanted to be an angel.

The kids in his grade said he was silly, and the older kids said he was stupid, and the even older kids cooed over him like he was precious. It didn't change his mind. He wanted it for reasons other than huge wings and a shiny halo.

He wanted to be able to help people. He wanted the human race to remember his name, to have it slip into their lexicon as a word for 'good', for 'help', for 'cure'. He wanted to _matter._

His juvenile fantasies withered away and realistic, real-world goals filled the spaces left behind- but Jimmy never forgot, not really. When he was dozing through class or staring at his watch through another centuries-long shift, a part of him always still whispered ' _why can't I be more?'_

Under an open sky in Pontiac, Illinois, he does something similar; he becomes something _else_. It's not, he reflects later on, quite the same thing.

In the end, Jimmy makes it as close to 'angel' as a person can get, and it brings him nothing but pain. It's not what he wanted it to be, not what he dreamed about at night. And that's sad, but it's okay. Jimmy's okay.

He realises this, all of this, in the split second before Lucifer's fingers snap; realises that he never actually needed any of the things he thought he did. He never needed the love of thousands, he never needed to find himself in scripture and songs and stained glass windows.

Out there, hundreds of miles away, there is a beautiful woman and a beautiful girl, and they know his name and they will never let it go. In his late thirties, in a cemetery outside Lawrence, Jimmy finally realises the truth. He has had a family; he always _will_ have his family. He has protected them, he has helped them and he has loved them, and they have done the same for him.

How could he ever want more?

* * *

Nobody ever thinks of the vessel. An angel or demon swoops in and says 'I'm taking this now', and then everybody just somehow _forgets_ that there's a person still in there. Lucifer must have destroyed hundreds of demons- _scum, Nick, nothing but scum-_ but he never gave the slightest thought to the people they were riding around in. It wasn't even that he didn't care; they just somehow failed to register.

 _Meatsuits,_ Nick's heard people slur, but even the word _vessel_ tastes bitter on his lips. It implies an emptiness, a container worth nothing until it's filled. Well, every single 'container' had a mother and father and family, and maybe a mortgage they'd nearly paid off or a house they were re-decorating, or a song they'd played twenty times that day because they just couldn't get it out of their head, and then they were taken and then they were killed. Every angel pierced with a blade, every demon ended by a touch of the hand or the kiss of a knife, every single one was a double-murder and nobody ever stopped to just fucking _think_.

It was always just a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, without having the ability to choose to go anywhere else.

And it's strange being handed back the keys to his own body. It's strange being alone in his head, and Nick doesn't need the demons' help to feel bad; he's already carrying around enough guilt to sink the Titanic.

When his thoughts start to re-order themselves and he manages to sit up, Nick tries to decide what to do next. He checks his pockets for inspiration and finds $5 and a cheap mobile phone instead. The phone just happens to have full charge, and doesn't that reek of angel? Then again, so does the fact that he's currently sat in Delaware when he definitely died in Michigan.

Nick scrolls through 'Contacts', still feeling like he's in a dream, and tries to remember the last time he talked to half the people on the list. He doesn't even know if they're all still _alive_ \- with all the chaos before the final song, it's anybody's guess.

He doesn't want to go back to his house. Hell, he doesn't even know if the thing is still there. It's been over a year since he left it; it might have been sold or rented or burned to the ground. He buries his face in his hands and just breathes, waiting for his body to stop shaking. At a loss for what else to do, he goes back the one thing he always does in a crisis.

 **'I don't know what to do'.** After a moment's thought, he adds something on. **'Not in a bar.'**

He hits send. The reply comes back within two minutes.

**'My house, 5 mins. Bring coke.'**

* * *

Pain.

Bright light. Pitch blackness. Pain. Ice. Icicles, jagged formations pushing at his body until they scratch his skin, break through the flesh, come out the other side. Fire and ash and dust and rain, flooding, filling his lungs with water and _pain_. Pressure that breaks his bones and then an unbearable nothingness that drives him to _beg_ for the pain to come back and all the while, all the while, a ringing in his ears that just will not go away.

And then it does. With no reason, with no rhyme, it does.

Fresh sounds, sliding into his ears. Collisions somewhere deep within his brain. He doesn't understand.

"Nick, sweetheart," a demon sings. He blinks stupidly, and it slaps him across the face. "Wake up, silly boy. Are you ready for level two?"

He licks his lips, readying his voice to reply, but he hasn't thought the words through and they die before they complete their gestation. The demon slaps him again and grunts to another, by its side, "get him down".

Together, the two demons rip the bloodied nails from his hands, from his chest, and he hits the ground hard. It's a drop of ten feet or more, and he's been strung up for some time now- arms out, head up, legs dangling. Crucifixion. They thought it was funny.

"Walk," one demands. His legs tremble and crumple underneath him. He can't. "Walk!" it barks again. Something hits his back- a whip, he thinks. He whimpers. He can't.

"Drag him," the demon says in disgust. Two demons, huge and heavyset, emerge from nowhere. They loop their arms around his waist. The other demons wave at Nick jauntily as he is dragged out.

He tries to keep up at first, but the demons move too quickly and have no reservations against letting him smash into things, and soon he just gives in and gives up. His fingers scrape against the floor and his feet leave a spotted trail of blood behind them. Nick doesn't know how long they travel for. It feels like months. Maybe it is.

He doesn't know they've arrived until they spill him onto the ground. He has time to make out a blurry form, strung up in the same way he was, some distance away. He doesn't have the energy to lift his head and so he stays silent and still, jerking a little when whoever he's in the room with lets out a blood-curling scream. He hears a painful-sounding thud and guesses they've been cut down too.

"C'mon, boys," somebody calls. A demon, he supposes "Say hello, make friends."

It takes effort and strength and the ever-present threat of the whip sinking into his flesh to force Nick to his feet. It takes time, but he eventually stands and when he sees what's before him, he can't move. He _can't_. He's too afraid, too terrified, because whatever they've done so far, this is going to be worse.

"Something wrong?" a demon asks innocently.

 _No angels_ , Nick wants to cry. _Please, no more angels._ He can take any demon they have lurking in this sullen pit, can take them _all_ , but he please, _please,_ no angels.

"Please," Castiel whispers. "Please, leave me alone."

* * *

It's not an exaggeration to say that when Nick knocks on Brittany's front door, he can't see a way he could ever be happy again. As far as he's concerned, he's done this dance before. After the disaster with Banjo, he turned things around by turning them off. He gave the dog up for adoption, got a new job which required no brain power and focused on nothing but getting through the days. Feet moving forwards, brain stuck stubbornly in the past; lights on, nobody at home, front door hanging open. Simple.

But when Britt opens the door, she breaks the rhythm of the dance, screws up their routine. She's supposed to sigh heavily but wordlessly invite him in, and once he's back on his feet he'll slowly faze her out of his life again- for her sake. This plan goes wrong at step one, however. She opens the door and bursts into noisy tears the second she sees his face.

"You stupid, _stupid_ fucking bastard," she says, words muffled by the fabric of his shirt as she clings to him. "I've been so fucking worried. I thought- fuck, Nick, I thought you were dead."

"Kinda was," he says in his shock, and luckily for him she dismisses this as nothing but personified grief. She takes the red plastic six-pack from his hands (there is comfort in consistency) and leads him inside.

In the hallway, he hears a noise which turns him into a statue. Britt smacks into him but he barely notices. A baby's cry. He wonders, with a detached kind of pain, if he's hallucinating again.

"Shit," Britt says. "I meant to warn you about that." And when she lays a hand on his arm, he finally notices the ring pushed on her finger.

"Ian?" he says in a daze. She nods.

"I proposed. He was taking too long about it."

"And the…" Fuck, he can't even _say_ the word.

"Our son," Britt says. Nick swallows a dry mouthful of air.

"Right," he says. "Okay. How… old is he?"

"A year. He turns one next week."

"Thought you didn't want kids," he says limply, lacking anything better to say.

"Neither did I," she says. "I never used to. But then you and Sarah… when you had Adam… I don't know, it made me think."

" _Adam_?" he says, not sure he can believe what he's hearing. "Seriously, Britt? You saw me lose everything I ever had, and that made you think 'yeah, good idea?"

"I saw you the happiest I've ever seen you."

"For six months!"

"And those six months were the happiest I've ever seen you," she snaps back. "You can't let tragedy define your life, Nick. It's pointless. The crap doesn't mean that the good never happened."

Nick has no idea what to think about that, much less how to respond. "What's his name?" he eventually asks.

"Jonathan Nicholas Taylor," she replies smoothly. He stares. "'Nicholas' is after you. Sorry to play the full name card, but we had to. Jonathan Nick sounded stupid."

It's too much. He turns away, yanking himself free of her touch.

"Why?" he rasps. Why him? Out of all the people in the world, why name such a precious thing after _him_?

"Because you were my best friend, because you still are, and because if Jon grows up to be anything like you I'll consider my job well done," Brittany replies, in her brisk, just-stating-the-facts manner. "So can we cut the sappy bullcrap already?"

"You're the one crying," he says, his shaking voice an indicator that he might follow suit pretty damn soon.

"I am not."

"Are."

"The sun was too bright."

"It's three in the morning."

"Three fifteen. Don't exaggerate."

And she asks him where he's been but he won't say, and she offers him a space on their sofa and then shouts at him until he takes it. He's silent, but Britt doesn't leave his side.

Ian stumbles blearily out of bed at some stage but she wards him away with "Nick's having a crisis, fetch biscuits or be quiet". Ian does both of these things and then returns to bed, because apparently his wife has trained him well.

When the sun begins to rise, Nick is sat with his head in his hands, his mind replaying everything over and over like a nightmare he can't wake up from. He doesn't even notice Britt leave the room; starts in shock when she appears and presses something into his arms.

"Here," she says.

"No, no, no," he tries objecting, but she folds her arms and stands back.

"He's going to be your godson someday, so you might as well say hello."

Nick pushes that casually stated enormity aside to deal with later. For now, he just looks down at the small face looking up at him. He doesn't know what to do. He's afraid to even move his hands because all he can picture is the wounds he cut into Jimmy, the people he watched himself kill, Adam lying butchered in his crib-

And then Jon's face breaks into the widest grin Nick has ever seen, and he reaches out a grasping hand for Nick's face, and Nick brings him up to his shoulder. Suddenly, strangely, it's all simple again, all as natural as breathing.

It's slow, and it hurts, but maybe that's just life. All Nick can say is that as time goes on, it hurts less. He hadn't been expecting that, and when he realises one day that things are actually getting better, he's not all that sure what to think.

"Not sure I deserve to be happy," he tells the gravestone. Adam and Sarah listen, as they always have. Their bodies lie entwined under the dirt, at peace. "Not after you, and Jimmy, and all the people I…"

As Nick sits at the graveside, head down, something happens. It's the biggest fucking cliché in the world but it's a feather, small and white and perfectly formed, and it floats right into his lap.

He keeps it. It's kinda bizarre, kinda backwards and more than a little sappy, but apparently some things never change.

He moves out of Britt and Ian's house, finds a flat that's bare and blank. He doesn't want any colour or personality in it, doesn't want to feel like home. But in time, things sneak their way in. It's easy to ignore when it's just clothes, more difficult when books and DVDs join them, and by the time he's gotten signed baseball posters out of storage and hung up a picture Ian gave him for Christmas, he can safely say that he's somehow ended up getting attached to the place.

He gets a job which he doesn't love, but which he doesn't hate- basic IT work, nothing too taxing. After four months he finally agrees to go out for a drink with a co-worker, though he makes sure he specifies he won't be having alcohol. They don't stay long- two hours felt like the maximum Nick could handle in one go- but it's good. It quickly becomes a weekly ritual, Nick cautiously nudging how long he stays until he can spend five, six hours in the company of others and not feel like he's about to have a breakdown.

He doesn't have much energy for anything, but he's learned whose playthings idle hands become, so he forces himself to stay busy. He starts volunteering at the local animal shelter, the one he took Banjo to. He enquires after the dog, and whilst the staff can't give up any information about who adopted him, they offer to pass on any message Nick might have.

Nick just says that he'd like to know how Banjo's doing, and a week later he gets a letter from the family with photos attached. Banjo fast asleep on his back, Banjo looking absolutely blissed-out paddling in a large inflatable pool, Banjo with a toddler's sticky arms wrapped around his shoulder. Nick was right- they write that he's great with kids.

He sticks the pool picture up on his wall alongside one of Sarah and Adam, taken at the hospital when Adam was born. Sarah's hair is in a 'style' more commonly seen in electrocution victims, and she's red and sweaty with eyeliner forming long black streaks down her face, and he thinks she looks every inch as beautiful as she did on their wedding day.

He wants to cover the whole wall with pictures of Sarah and their son and the life he left behind, but he manages to stop himself at just one. He puts up a shot of himself and Britt from a few years ago instead, then one of him and Sandra from even further back, and then new pictures slowly start accumulating. Nights out, days with friends, visiting Sandra, a Thanksgiving, a Christmas.

***

One year passes. The days when he wakes up and feels okay are starting to outnumber the ones where he wakes up and everything hurts. The nightmares go from three times a night to once a night to a few times a week. Nick's not interested in dating anybody, but he makes a small cluster of very good friends. He's determined to never, ever let them find out the truth about angels or demons or just where Nick went in that year where he fell off the radar, but they know about Sarah and Adam and they're there for him. Not that he talks about it often- or at all- but he knows they'll be there if he ever wants to. That's good. That's enough.

A litter of puppies are brought into the shelter one day, found dumped on the side of the road and left to die. Nick pushes away bitter thoughts about humanity to focus on settling the new dogs in- cleaning them, checking them over, talking to them in gentle, soothing voices. They gentle under his hands, looking at him with wide, trusting eyes. They trust him not to hurt them.

He places the final puppy into the basket- the smallest one, with an eye infection and a lame paw- and it _looks_ at him. He looks back helplessly.

"I don't need a dog," he tries, but he doesn't get very far with it.

***

Another year passes. One night, he's fast asleep when, halfway through one a mundane dream about something or other, a familiar face appears. Though it's actually one of two, when he thinks about it, and at first he's not sure which particular isomer is standing in front of him.

"Who are you?" he asks warily.

"It's me. Jimmy," the man says.

"Jimmy?"

His face breaks into a grin- and yes, that's definitely Jimmy. "It's good to see you, man."

And Nick can't help but throw an arm around him, pull him into a brief hug, because he's right. It _is_ good to see him. It makes no sense, considering the nature of their relationship, but Nick misses Jimmy. He sometimes finds himself chatting to Jimmy in much the same way he talks to Sarah or Adam. He tells him about things on TV, or shit happening in the news, or crap going down which he vaguely suspects is supernatural but is sure as hell not looking into.

"So, uh- how's Heaven?" Nick asks.

"Good. Castiel wasn't lying," Jimmy says. "Where I am, at least, it's good."

Nick nods. "How's Earth?" Jimmy asks.

"Same as ever."

"You sure?"

Nick thinks about it. "No," he admits. "Things are… getting better. I think."

"That's good, isn't it?"

"I don't know." He stares out into the distance, into what might be a beach but might just as easily be a wood. His dreams rarely make sense. "I feel guilty, y'know?"

"What? Did-"

"No, not like that! Normal guilt. Natural."

"Oh. Oh, good."

"I just meant that… I was happy. With Sarah and Adam, I mean. Feels wrong to be happy without them."

Jimmy is silent for a few moments, but then he begins to speak. "My family, you know, we used to have this album. I started it- stupid thing, really, but each year we took a photo. Of me and my wife and our daughter, in the same spot, so you could flick through and watch us change."

"Sounds nice," Nick comments.

"It was. But I was only there up until photo number twelve. After that, I became… you know." He gestures to his chest in a gesture Nick can only assume means 'angel fodder'.

"And?" Nick says, admittedly not sure where this is going.

" _And_ they still kept that album going. Every year, there's been a picture of Amelia and Claire, stood together. They've moved so there's not a gap where I was, and whilst they look way too sad in the first few, they seem brighter again in the more recent ones. Claire smiles. She has braces now." Jimmy lets his words linger for a moment, lost somewhere in the past. "Sorry. What I was saying is that none of that means they don't miss me. It doesn't mean they never loved me. It just means things are different now. Not worse, not better, just… different."

Nick absorbs this. After a few minutes, he says "how have you even seen that? The album, I mean."

"Castiel. Don't ask, it's… confusing. To say the least."

"Castiel?" Nick says. "Dammit, the stuff I've heard… he killed a lot of people, Jimmy. I mean, I get that I can hardly tal-"

" _Nick_ ," Jimmy says firmly.

"Fine, whatever," Nick says, because the Lucifer/Nick definition is one he still struggles with, self-blame clinging like blood to a blade. "But you're still in contact with him? Is that safe?"

"It's not so much that he visits as much as he… flickers in and out. It's weird. He says he's still in my body, but he's not. He's himself, but he isn't. He mentions the name Emmanuel sometimes."

"Emmanuel?"

"No idea. But I doknow that those killings… they weren't him. Not really."

Nick thinks of those low voices hissing, of the shapes bulging from the angel's skin, and finds that he can accept this as truth.

"He still feels guilty, though," Jimmy comments.

"Don't we all?" Nick mutters. If somebody ever drew up a 'vessel' contract, 'intense guilt' would definitely be in the small print. But some days, it feels like he's nearly halfway to forgiving himself and if Nick can manage _that,_ then he can definitely forgive Castiel.

They talk a little longer.

"One more thing," Nick says, right before he wakes up. "None of this is real, right? You're not actually you?"

"No, of course not," Jimmy says.

"Of course."

"Humans can't dreamwalk."

"Obviously."

"Not unless you know an angel with a history of disobedience and the inclination to take stupid risks to make a human smile, that is."

"Ahh."

"Mmm."

As he says the words, an angel matching his description suspiciously well is sleeping soundly next to a woman named Daphne, his grace flickering frustratedly between Heaven and the naïve body lying in the bed. One day, he will put the pieces back together and things… won't go so well after that, but they'll keep on going. So will he, because the people he cares about want him to, and whenever he looks in the mirror he sees the face of the man who taught him just what family can mean to a person.

In Pile Creek, Delaware, Nick keeps on going too. Sometimes it's kind of hard and sometimes it's fucking awful, but sometimes it's good and sometimes it's downright great. Jimmy doesn't show up again, but Nick almost thinks he prefers it that way. Leave the dead behind and let the living live on.

In Pontiac, Illinois, time passes as time tends to do, and an album steadily fills up. In picture twenty-one, another man appears in the photo alongside Amelia. She does not love him more or less than Jimmy; he is neither a replacement nor a substitute. In picture twenty-seven, both Amelia and the new man move to the back of the photo to make way for Claire, her husband, and the baby girl snuggled in her arms.

Things aren't better and things aren't worse- they're just different. It turns out that there's more than one kind of good, and you even if you've lost one, you can gain another. That's allowed.

From time to time, Nick thinks of the love he was lucky enough to have- if only for a limited time- and of the friends he still has around him, and Jimmy recalls the peace he found with his family and the peace they're finally finding again without him, and Castiel looks at the two boys loudly arguing as they drive their father's car down long, dusty roads, and all any of them can think is that if they were ever 'vessels' then surely they've been filled, because nothing, nothing is empty here.


End file.
